


Surrogate Reality

by decaf_death



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Gen, Kinda, Power Imbalance, Space Fascists, Unrequited Love, i'm literal star wars trash, phasma be my wife, space sin, this might get romantic at some point, we'll see where this goes because i don't have a damn clue
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-01
Updated: 2017-04-01
Packaged: 2018-07-11 12:41:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 24
Words: 34,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7051927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decaf_death/pseuds/decaf_death
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You're taken from the life you know and shoved into a world you never dreamed of, what will become of you? Will you ever escape? See your family again? What could the First Order want with a nobody like you?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Last Sunrise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I've made some pretty drastic changes as of 4/23/17, but I like it better this way. I hope you do too.

My room was small and sparsely decorated, a little messy if I’m completely honest. Everything on Tatooine has a layer of dust to it, and I’m in no way exempt from the effects of living on a desert planet. I used to think the way the golden flecks of sand floated through the soft morning light was like watching tiny stars shine. I lived below my work. With the derelict cantina above, I earned my keep as a barmaid, it always felt like one of those ancient in-ground graves, living below where it was cool and dark. I relaxed in my too-narrow too-short bed watching the tiny stars dance across the small shaft of light that filtered into my room. I try not to think about the hidden knife just under the frame of my bed, and another in the band of my soft boot. On a poor outer-rim planet of scavengers and thieves, these precautions are more necessary than the black-market blaster on my bedside table, never set to stun. I could feel more than hear Mar moving around upstairs, turning over chairs, wiping down the bar. Routine noises of the most relaxing sort, my eyes drifted softly closed as I listened to the gentle swooshing of the broom and Mar’s rhythmic, booming steps.  
From peaceful sleep I was dragged, delirious, kicking and screaming from my bed, all effort futile against my larger and more skilled aggressors in their distinctive white amor.  
“Do not resist” The impersonal voice would reply time and time again as they held me up from under my small arms, stringy brown hair hanging limp in my eyes, legs drag behind me, exhaustedly trying to kick free. in all of my under-clothed and wild glory. They held me like an animal, shoving my face into the walls of the corridor as they tightened the binders to a crushing diameter, I screamed and spit and threw myself at them, demanding over and over where I was being taken.  
In the same light of a binary sunrise, I was loaded like particularly troublesome cargo into the transporter that awaited me eagerly with a great gaping maw. They grabbed me again by my shoulders and held me bent at the waist as they unbound my wrists, cool air stung the raw skin on my arms and brushed uncomfortably across my somewhat exposed behind. When they strapped me down troopers stood two by two in front of and behind me as though I was some dangerous, feral thing that had to be kept away from the rest of the crew and not the stolen goods I felt like. I gritted my teeth and held back screams of frustration mixed with freezing cold fear that started in my throat and ended somewhere close to where my stomach meets my hips, shaking against the restraints that were much too large for a little thing like myself.


	2. And Into Darkness Plunged

I couldn’t recall falling asleep or being drugged, but the waves of nausea that washed over me proved it was unequivocally the latter. As I realized where I was and how I got there my sorrow and fear and homesickness mixed with the chemicals swirling around my bloodstream in a stifling cocktail of misery. The darkened room around me told me nothing of my surroundings except for the cold, slanted table I was bound to, binders around my wrists and ankles that had somehow been tightened further. Any movement felt like my bones were being ground to dust. I wept openly for my losses, gone to the looters and scavengers on that Creater forsaken rock, for myself, for surely I would die here, wherever this is. My fight was as short lived as my fury, fear and hopelessness took the place of my ferocity and turned my heart colder than the air around me. I thought to myself that I would have liked to have grown old before I died, but there I was, facing deaths eternity at twenty.  
I wished I could have pushed my hair out of my face, not that it would help me see any in the pitch of the room. Panic started to coil deep in my belly like a sand serpent in the night, my breathing became more erratic and my head swam.  
I knew I needed control, mostly I needed the warm ground beneath my feet and a serving bottle in my hand but oxygen will have to be enough.   
I thought to myself, there are more senses than sight.   
It was a struggle to slow my breathing, but little by little I regained control of my respiratory system, keeping time with my bare toes within my soft boots against the metal footboard as I forced myself to breathe in slowly and exhale even slower, repeated until my focus returned and I can think more clearly.   
Within my mind I heard I ringing, and breathed into it again and again, it got louder and louder in my head until I could feel it rattling around my teeth, my ears working in overdrive to feel it bouncing off the walls around me, sizing up the room, reverberating and bouncing all around. The walls gave back a metallic buzz against the clarion call from within me, I could feel the moderate size of the chamber and that I was indeed alone. By touch I knew the table to be metal as well as the binders, but this information was not enough to satiate me. I was dehydrated and tired, cold, angry, and scared. But I was forced to wait until someone decides they wanted me. It could have been seconds or days before they could kill, interrogate, torture, or set me free. With these thoughts of my own death the ringing died as well. I didn’t think of it as sympathetic at the time.   
Bright, blue-white lamps snapped on overhead, making my eyes want to recede back into my skull and the sound of a previously secured door sliding open made me jump against my restraints despite the ache in my crushed joints. My heartbeats pounded in my ears as measured footsteps converged with intimidating figure. I paid no mind to the two storm troopers that flank him on either side where he stands directly in front of me, all flame red hair perfectly in place, broad shoulders and immaculate uniform. His gun-metal grey holopad in hand and pen poised to write my death sentence. My hands shook.  
“This is the fugitive sir, she was recovered on Tatooine.” The stormtrooper to his right spoke uneasily, his voice wavered in ways the voice modulator on his helmet should have corrected. Maybe he wasn’t used to being this up close and personal with the nearly dead, maybe the man in the perfect uniform told them I was dangerous, Maybe he too was afraid of the man with flame-red hair.   
The elegantly foreboding man didn’t bother to look up from his holopad as he spoke, “That will be all. Dismissed”, this was routine, this was normal, this was First Order. I can still hear my own heartbeat erratically in my ears.   
“Recovered fugitive ZN-6144, you are aboard the Finalizer under the authority of myself, General Hux. And I am here under the authority of the First Order. Do you understand.” It wasn’t a real question.  
“I wasn’t running from anyone I can’t be a fugitive”, the words spilled from my mouth like water onto the thirsty ground of my home planet, “I don’t know why I’m here” Once the flood started you could not cap the outpouring. “Please tell me why I’m here” sobs grabbed hold of my chest and refused to release me. Flashes of warm sand and dusky purples sunsets played behind my eyes and I mourned my home.   
Calmly he brought his holopad to hip, placed a hand on the table next to my side, and ever so deliberately hit a switch that ignited my skin like searing flames, over my screams I heard his even voice, “That is not the correct answer”. He waited another few moments watching my agony to release me from the invisible fire. Breath came in heaves with the tightness in my chest and the whooshing in my ears was incessant but I managed to grate out through my teeth, “I understand”.   
“Then we may begin.”

I prefered the sensory deprivation and isolation to being interrogated by General Hux. Hours and hours of questions, ranging from day to day routine and who tipped the best to where I was on Sol 162. If he wasn’t satisfied with my answer he would turn on the searing, burning heat of the table I was bound to once again. By the time he left I had no idea how long it had been, it could have been hours or days. No one would tell me. My skin ached like my heart and my head, throbbing and wanting nothing more than to return to the peaceful sleep I was ripped from when they took me from life. I wanted to cry but no tears came. Again there is only the vast darkness and myself. 

He came to me for three more sessions before things changed. The lights came on and the door slid open once again, but this time it was only four stormtroopers in my cell, I questioned my sanity at feeling relief in their presence.   
“ZN-1644 under orders from General Hux you will be transported to Holding Bay 9”  
I wanted desperately to rub at my wrists, raw and bruised as they were released from their shackles, but before I could get the chance I was once again grabbed and hauled away. It seems to be a recurring theme in my life these days. The air was cold and I was suddenly very aware of how underdressed for the occasion I was. Corridor after Corridor after lift I was paraded through like breeding stock, most on patrol keep their eyes ahead, but others stop dead in their tracks to size me up like the Slavers used to.I had to resist the urge to spit at them. Occasionally I would catch a fleeting glimpse of my own face in the dark pools of floor I was forced over, my hair was wild and hung in thickly tangled cords, but the curving lines and patterns of my tattoo stood starkly visible against light skin. The last memory of my people. The only thing left to strip away from me. Finally I reached a door that looked exactly like all of the other doors, but this one I was shoved to a halt in front of, so it was special. The trooper to my left, the one in charge, entered a complex code into the panel embedded into the wall, I tried to remember the pattern of sounds the buttons made but my tired and beat up brain was left useless. This door, heftier than the last, slid open slowly.   
“Under order of General Hux you will clean yourself and eat.” Was the last thing spoken to me before I was nearly tossed inside, and the door slammed shut with a resounding thud. The cold metal floor was hard on my sore knees. The room was chilled, mostly metal save for a thin pillow and blanket on a simple cot, not unlike the one I slept on back home. The idea of home made my chest and throat feel tight, you can cry later, keep yourself alive now. I thought to myself. The smallest of amenities seemed like luxury suddenly. I was standing on my own feet in a space that for the time being, belonged to only me. There are worse things than this. I sighed, long and deep.   
I woke to a small slot in the door opening and a metal tray scraping against the floor of my cell, warm food smells coaxed me out of the moment of comfort. My joints reminded me of what I’ve endured but I tried to not think about them terribly hard, food took priority to my starving brain. Instant bread and some sort of broth, bland but surprisingly bearable. It’s odd to eat without any surprise grit of sand between my teeth. I thought to myself that if it's poisoned that warm bread is how I would want to go, but it's just the hunger talking, and the First Order wouldn’t kill without due spectacle anyway.   
Over my meal I tried to scrape together some idea of why I was even there. I wasn’t with anyone , either side. Not New Republic, not the Jedi (if they even really exist), not the First Order, and not the Resistance. I’m just an Outer Rim girl, a barmaid, even the sex slaves are worth more. What ends are justifying their means, or is this all just some sick game?   
I wondered idly how long it will be before another trooper comes to spit orders at me or to haul me somewhere else on this behemoth of a ship. I wondered what that sadist General Hux is doing at the moment. All of these to keep my mind away from the sense of impending doom. It doesn’t work terribly well. My skin still hurt.   
I’ve got to find a way off this thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, make sure to leave me comments so that I know what you like and what to improve upon! 
> 
> Neurotically yours,  
> Decaf


	3. Extra-sensory

I took a mental inventory of what I had: my gauzy sleeveless shirt and loose short-pants; desert wear and not nearly enough to satisfy my needs. I reached down gingerly for the small knife I kept tucked into my left boot, the heft of it was hard under my slender fingers and I ripped my hand away as though I had been stung badly. I knew I was playing a dangerous game.I had my prision standard blanket and pillow, a bar of soap from the refresher...and that was about it from my stark surroundings. It looks like my hands and my brain are as good as this will get, and the brain part of that is insufficient at best. I thought dejectedly. I needed a more effective weapon and someone on the inside. And I only have one of those things. It's time to become the scavenger I so detested once before.  
And I really wished that they had given me a toothbrush.  
I sat down heavily on the cool ground and started trying to rationalize. The only good my clothes or blanket could do me would to be a permanent way out, but there's nothing to hook them onto, nothing protruding enough to tie a knot, and nothing to hang it from the ceiling. That’s not the way out I’m looking for anyway, I’m not that desperate yet.  
The way I leaned my aching head against the cool metal wall of my cell gave me an idea, it wasn’t the best thing I’ve ever come up with, but it’s better than a kick in the teeth. But I still had a hunch that my every move was being watched and recorded. I held back one of my lopsided smiles, lest it give me away, and got to work ‘washing’ my exposed skin in the cold water of the refresher just like I was ordered to. I felt the shivering slither up my spine faster than the General’s voice as I laid on the cold duracrete floor once again. 

“ZN-6144 under the er...ZN-6144?” The trooper invading my cell tilted his head inquisitively as he regards me, shoved as small as I would fit into one corner, wrapped tight in my thin blanket, shivering violently, teeth chattering and surely blue in complexion. “Um sir there is a problem-” Is all I catch as the trooper hastily exists my cell and closes the door. If I wasn’t freezing and focused on getting out with my life I would have smiled to myself. I leaned my head against the wall and tried to look as miserable as possible for when they come back.  
I closed my heavy, sunken eyes slowly, my chapped lips hang slightly open. The door reopens, and two troopers step through.  
“As I told you sir, the fugitive is infirm.” At first I concentrated on making my breath seem laboured, chest heaving with the force of keeping me warm and wheezing noticeably, then more slowly and with drifting eyes I looked up at my wardens, allowing my teeth to chatter against each other in the quiet of the room. Secretly I pressed the back of my exposed thigh against the cold ground once again and felt the gooseflesh instantly break out across my skin.  
“I’m so-o-o-so”, I stutter around chattering teeth, “cold.” I let my head loll back to the side where it was before. Dramatic at best, but it’ll have to do.  
“Place of origin is Tatooine, sir” The one says surprisingly imploringly to the other, an unexpected move of mercy, so far so good. Maybe this will be worth it.  
“Send for warmer clothing and another blanket. The General has given orders to keep her alive. Dismissed FN-388.” This time I allowed yourself to crack a smile around only slightly chattering teeth. I relaxed slightly, enjoying my small victory. While I was uncomfortably cold, I was nowhere as close to death as I needed them to think I am, and while stormtroopers are notoriously simple. This won’t be enough to get me out, I had to go further into the darkness if I ever wanted to see a sunrise ever again. 

I changed into the First Order regulation clothes, the shirt was blessedly high collared and long sleeved, plain black and some kind of insulating material. The pants were also form fitting but rather black and grey with a cloth belt to hold them in place, the belt did not detach sadly. It would have made a decent garrott. My favorite part of my new clothes was the thick, warm, and only slightly scratchy socks and lace-up, shiny black boots. I always wanted a pair like these back home, and I thought to myself that if I manage to get back to Tatooine that these would make an acceptable souvenir, I particularly liked the way my knife settled into the space between by ankle and the stiff wall of the shoe. Finally I was decently comfortable, but if I wanted to get out I was going to have to betray that instinct. My joy over finally having decent clothing was short lived. I knew what I had to do, but it still felt like treason.  
Carefully I re-wet my own clothes under the coldest water I could get out of the sink in the refresher. The dust and dirt colored the silvery steel bowl brown with muck, it made my chest feel tight to literally be washing away myself and my home. I started to deny myself food and drink and rid of it via plumbing- I figured that if I flat out refused to eat they would install a feeding tube. After my clothes were soaked through with freezing cold water I left them out, dripping wet in the sink to dampen. Once they were dry enough to put on without feeling squishy I fought every comfort-seeking fiber of my being to force myself to put on the freezing cold, garments under my new First Order prison outfit. They clung to my skin as though I was vacuum sealed within them, I could practically feel my core temperature dropping by the hour. If the insulated material could keep cold out, it could also keep cold in. It was miserable and sure to work.  
I woke from a dozing sleep shivering and with the weight of a crolute on the front of my head. Sinuses inflamed and a scratch in my throat, it was only a matter of hours before I had a full blown fever. Chills slipped down your spine and I couldn’t tell if it was from the cold, my excitement, or my bodies rebellion against my choices. My immune system is notoriously poor, and for once in my life, it might help me save your own life.  
Body aches set in, more bread and broth came and went, I knew they would be back for me soon. My own clothes were almost dry against my now clammy, feverish skin. I stripped out of them so that I was left in my First Order garb and waited, hands pressed against the cold stone floor for added effect. Cold hands and a hot forehead were always the tell tale signs. I could tell that I was at the end of my fasting rope, I can only go so long without eating and drinking. Without a way to tell time I knew that I had maybe another half day before my dehydration became critical. Some things from desert life one cannot unlearn.  
This had to work. I prayed to whatever rules over the universe that I was sickly looking enough to get the hell out of this room.  
The universe must have smiled upon me.  
“ZN-6144 you are being transported to the Sick Bay under orders of General Hux with approval of Dr. Nautis” Again with all the titles I think to myself as I wobbled to stand up, blanket around my shoulders like a child. Only one stormtrooper escorted me this time, I am no longer considered a threat. At this point I’m only a threat to myself, but I can work through this if it means saving my life.  
“Low grade fever, runny nose, sinus congestion, sinus headache, sore throat, and body aches, is that all?” The deceptively kind looking doctor looked down at me through his thick glasses. I’m lying on a nicely cushioned examination bench trying to look like I’m on the brink of death, but I know he sees through my act yet he does nothing. I would like to get him alone and ask what he knows about why I’m here, or anyone that could help me get to a safe way out, but I can’t risk exposing myself or him. It would surely be the end of you both. I’ll just have to take his complacence as a gift and find a way out on your own.  
“Yes dir” You slightly exaggerate your congested state.  
“Right, well…” He starts, but you can’t resist.  
“Sir, how long have I been here? Since I was taken?” I nearly beg. The way my voice weakly cracks around the words makes me cringe.  
“I’m not supposed to tell you, but given your circumstances…” He quickly tabs through my chart on the holopad, “It has been four cycles, for you that's around 96 standard hours.” I’m not surprised, just shocked that in four days my entire life could be turned over like this.  
“Anyway, aside from the severe dehydration and malnutrition that's most likely a result of your planet of origin…” He scrolled through more sheets on his holopad, I hoped with everything I am and ever could be that he doesn’t send me back to that cell, I push and push my thoughts with all that I can that something will show this doctor that I absolutely must not return tonight. “It is my decision to keep you here for transfusion of fluids and a round of antibacterials, overnight for observation purposes.” 

I’m given an IV drip, it would be lying to say that it doesn’t make me feel almost instantly better. I lay on the cushioned bench with the hanging bags attached to me for a few hours, drifting in and out of consciousness. At times I go over all that has happened since I was taken, what, only a couple days ago? And others I listen in on conversation around me, nothing of interest or importance is discussed. It’s mostly gossip. I lay in wait for the perfect moment. If they catch me they will kill me, but first they must catch me.  
The sick bay has gone quiet, no one has made any rounds to check on me for at least two hours. Carefully I removed the needles from my arms and swing my legs over so that I can get down. Slowly and quietly I take off my heavy First Order boots and tuck the knife inside by sleeve, and slide them out of sight in the darkness of the room, they make too much noise for what I need to do. I would grieve their shiny black loss but if I don’t make it out there won’t be anyone to grieve the loss of me. Silent as a shadow I make my path to the entryway, there is no one guarding the sick, there's no need to think they would be going anywhere.  
It would be a lie to say I know where I’m going. Other than Hell maybe.  
I manage to duck just out of sight in alcoves and empty rooms twice, each time nearly causing me a heart attack. I look for signs of a launch bay, and after what feels like miles and miles of corridor I find it. I slip in through the checkpoint with a group of troopers, if I wasn’t so focused on not getting killed I would be amused by how poor their sight must be. My only saving grace at this point is that I know how to be silent.  
I didn’t think I would get this far.  
So now I’m sitting in the pilot's seat of a First Order TIE fighter with absolutely no idea what to do. There’s at least fifty buttons in front of me and at least 1000 storm troopers ready to shoot me clean through if I don’t get a move on this very moment. In a last ditch effort I take in a deep breath and push out with my hands, placing them over the mechanical components, concentrating all of my mind on the sound sequence the buttons need make to start the ship and fly it. Unconventional at best.  
But I feel the faint tingle in my palms, eyes still closed I start the sequence, I hold my breath as I press button after button, and exhale as I flick the last switch. I feel the ship lift off and hear a commotion below. But there is nothing but me and the need to just get the hell out of here. Engines roaring at a feverish pitch I continue, dedicating all of myself to being one with the sounds and the vibrations of energy that cause them. My mind is a superhighway of vibration and reverberation, engines and capacitors and air pressure sensors, I know each inch of my ship by the sounds it makes. Eyes closed and palms open I manage my route to freedom.  
And then, just as soon as my success began it ground to a screeching halt.  
My eyes fly open as I feel an energy outside my own body and outside the ship I was only slightly piloting pluck me out of the air and slam me back into the launch bay floor. Tears prick my eyes and I feel the force of the crash in my bones. My head instantly swims and dips along with my stomach, my vision coming in and out of blackness.  
At least seven stormtroopers remove me from the wreckage of my dashed hopes. They hold my arms outstretched as I kneel on the hard floor, crucified.  
I feel heavy footsteps through my knees on the floor, fear mixed with foreboding undulates within me.  
“Your resistance is admirable, but foolish.” A man shaped shadow materializes in front of my line of vision, hulking in stature, powerful mask in figure, oozing savage grace. An equally savage lightsaber slung from his hip, I try to rip my gaze from it but not very deep down I know it will be my end.  
I hope it is swift.  
My world moves in silent slow motion as his hand reaches for the saber, my breathing coming in quick pants and vision blurring around my tears. The whirring noise that comes as he ignites my doom is the last thing I hear before the stormtroopers that hold my arms push my head forward to give their master easier access to my neck. Through my matted hair, I can see his lean legs and neatly polished shoes. A tear hangs onto your nose as I begin to shake in terror.  
I close my eyes, I don’t want the last thing I set eyes on to be the floor of the launch bay I almost escaped from and the toes of my oppressor's shoes. I picture the warmth of the sun on my skin and the way the light shines over the dunes, painting everything in the colors of fire. I can all but hear the music, bringing joy to everyone in the Cantina. Dancing and laughing and merriment. The quiet of my room, my soft-spoken mother, my sisters giggle, my father's strong hands.  
This is not how I wanted to die.  
A piercing whine interrupts my thoughts of my own mortality, white hot and strangely, coming from inside my head. I push back at it but it comes back twice as strong, flipping through memories of sound and sight, invading everything I am. I shove back as hard as I can, screaming now with the effort, I feel it yield and I rip my head back against the hands of the troopers sent to keep me still. I stare into the eyes of the mask of the shadow man, and I know it’s him torturing me, even in the moments before my death, but I continue pushing back, fighting back with nothing to lose. I make headway in the field of energy that hangs between the two of us. From the piercing whine banging around my skull, it becomes my heartbeat, steady in my ears, elevated and pumping hard, the only evidence that I am alive in this hell. Then it is two heartbeats, syncopated and staccato. I can hear the voices of his memories and see flashes of faraway places and people now, a woman with a regal face, a broad-shouldered man, an island, blood. before one shouts back into my brain “You are not enough”.  
And I shove forward with all of my weight, flinging myself at my murderer, and he does not stop me before I slash my knife across his wide chest. His wail of pain mingling with my own, the world settles back to a dull roar before I am ripped from consciousness entirely.


	4. Punishment

I’m back where I started.   
The feeling of the cool metal cuffs around my hands and feet bring tears to my eyes not out of pain, but of frustration and just how close I got. I know I won’t have another chance at that. They won’t turn any blind eyes to me ever again. I had one shot and I missed it by a hair's breadth. If I could I would pull my hair out at the roots.   
My breath stops in my chest as I realize in a panic that I can’t scream, I feel the air rushing out of my throat but no sound happens. Hysterically I shout and bang my abused hands and head against the table beneath you like a woman mad, but it is no use. It’s as though I’m underwater. My fingers tapping against metal should have made a metallic thump and a sharp clicking sound where my blunted fingernails meet polished steel. And all while my mind remembers these things my ears are useless to you.   
Silently to myself, tears begin to fall in earnest, dripping hotly out of the sides of my eyes and down my nose. I’m pathetic. A mockery of my past self.  
Stormtroopers come to make sure I’m alive, periodically, each time it startles me. I can’t hear them coming, can’t rely on my dominant sense to keep you safe. They must know by now that I’m good at keeping time, the intervals between visits seem random. It could have been hours, it could have been days. I wonder if they’re just going to let me rot here.   
Consciousness used to fade in and out of darkness to help me pass the time, but I can only sleep for so long.   
The worst part is that I still don’t know what got me here in the first place. 

I thought being deaf was bad until they turned off the lights.   
As is life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for taking time out of your busy day to read this! I hope you've enjoyed it!


	5. Price of Circumstance

To say that it startled me when the lights cut on and the powerful man from before was now not a foot away would be the understatement of the century.  
The tension between us gathered its strength as he tilted his masked face this way and that, appraising me, sizing you up as the scrappy thing that apparently only barely wounded him, basking in the fear that radiated off me in waves. He towered over me, looking like a shadow of something much larger than myself. The stuff of nightmares.  
“You can have the joy of killing me, but never the satisfaction of seeing my fear” I spat at the mask, vindictive, heavy saliva sticking to the visor. This is only a man, I remind myself, and he too will fall.  
“I look forward to breaking you.” The words were simple, short, as they fell out of the vocoder and onto the hard floor. I heard them, but did not comprehend them. All of reality had slowed down just for him, he backed up only slightly and reached under his defiled mask, my brain filled in the gaps where sounds should be because once again I was plunged into silence, a petty show of power I supposed. He turned away and set the heavy thing down. And I braced yourself for the sight of my demise.  
I was more than surprised to see that he looked more like me than the demons of my nightmares. Carefully, he returned to standing over me, inspecting me. Plump, youthful lips slightly parted, I could feel the ghost of his breath on my face. Seeing his molten amber colored eyes only made him more real, more tangible, more intimidating. Around only slightly crooked teeth he spoke without words, “Do you know who I am?”  
Carefully my mouth tried to remember what it felt like to speak clearly, I shook my head and tried to say “No”, but it must have come out garbled. Sadistic amusement crept across his broad features like a shadow, unbecoming at best.  
Again I felt him push and shove and pierce his way through my mind, not bothering with any carefulness, or really any care at all. His deep and resonating voice was clear, taking up more room in my head than my own voice, and all the more threatening than before,  
I am Kylo Ren.  
I know he knew my thoughts, the Knight of Ren should have been an old, shriveled, and scarred man. Mangled with time and warfare, I had heard the stories, entire planets obliterated, cultures wiped out of existence. His youth betrays him.  
Slowly, he lifts a heavily gloved hand to my eye level and I feel like a tank drained of water, every sound around me comes rushing into my brain in a shockingly over-stimulating manner. Pain seers all around and through me and if I wasn’t chained at the hand to the table I would muffle my ears. I can feel his satisfaction at my suffering just as well as I can see the smirk play over his aristocratic features.  
“Why am I even here?” I grit out between waves of pain. My death awaits, surely now is the time to speak freely. Perhaps for the last time.  
“I believe I am the one who will be asking questions.” He states calmly as he clasps his hands behind his back. He begins to pace about in front of me, but looking up he questions, “Did you really think you would escape? Desperate to get back to something, or someone rather?”  
I tilt my chin up to look at him properly before answering.  
“I figured the longer I stayed on this ship the closer my death becomes. Why not put it in my own terms.” I’ve never been this defiant in my whole life. My sister would applaud me.  
“As much pleasure as I would take in disposing of you, you’re too interesting to get rid of just yet.” I’m fuming. The indignity of the situation rubs my pride in the all the wrong directions.  
“How is your wound healing? Kylo Ren” I add the final address out of pure spite, the energy around me ripples and waves with force of your anger.  
“Just fine, thank you, ZN-6144,” He says with a practiced calm, that one got under his skin.  
“I have a name, Sir.” I spit the words at him with as much venom as I can muster.  
“And I don’t care to know it” He swiftly repostes, “I only care to know what you can offer me! And my Empire!” His voice crept up in volume as he spoke, growing into an ear-splitting shout, losing his resolve. I swallowed hard as his hand came to rest on the lightsaber that hung from his left hip.  
“I’m a barmaid, I work at the Cantina in the evenings, that is what I do. I have nothing to do with the First Order and I want nothing to do with you!” Suddenly there was an invisible vice around my throat, and had my hands been free I would have tried uselessly to claw at it. My vision swam as my heart beat loudly in my ears. I try to fight it off as well as I can but he is strong, he is prepared for me this time, he has outsmarted me.  
“You will obey, and you will not disrespect me. Slave.” His deep brown eyes bore into mine as my sight begins to fade, slowly he lets go of my airway.  
Voice shot and throat sore I force out, “So that is what I am now.” His face stays perfectly neutral, a practiced neutral. I feel tears prick the edges of my eyes, but I refuse to cry in front of him again.  
“Until I decide that I would like you more dead.” He replaces his helmet on his head and quickly stalks out of the room. Only then do I let myself weep.


	6. Unknown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PSA: I have made changes to this chapter that impact the storyline. If you are reading after 5/4/17 this does not effect you.

I wash and fold his clothes, painstakingly, by hand rather than by home-droid. I hang robe after robe and cape after cape, shine his helmet, shine his boots- oh the worst is shining his boots.I suppose the work could be worse, but it’s degrading all the same. I long for the grit and desolation of my home. Sometimes when I am alone in his chambers I hum or sing softly to myself, songs of home, songs of what once was. Some relics of my past, folk songs and nursery rhymes in my native tongue. It’s a siren song of a harsh and guttural world, paradoxical but home. I try to remember the warmth of the suns on my skin and the dust in the air, wearing down every surface, breaking down every stone that dares to cross its path, eventually bleaching it white with time. I miss the fire in the sky each set and rise. The eternal night of deep space wears on your soul.

  
I know I am always watched, always observed by some personal in some far reach of the ship, or maybe by Kylo Ren himself, but in this small rebellion I feel some semblance of normalcy, some echo of my past. I nearly cried when he demanded that I stop ‘that useless and unpleasant noise you produce as you work.’ He is determined to take away everything that makes me myself. I mourn the loss of my personality, I mourn the loss of my life in the late hours of the night and the early call of day, it's too bad I’m still alive to mourn.

  
This early day-cycle he sits languidly in the large easy chair in the common living space, well, common for him. I am not permitted to relax in the plush of the chairs and couches, only allowed to observe him in his comfort. His legs spread wide and feet propped on the polishing stool. He reads from his holopad as I kneel before him on the hard ground, my new uniform head-covering failing to keep all of my wild hair hidden away, but my hands are too busy servicing my master's feet to brush it away.

  
“You’re doing a poor job and you your appearance brings shame to the First Order.” Came the rumbling voice from somewhere above me, I held back a sigh and look up at him. “You know better than to look me in the eye, show some respect slave.” It’s only been days and already I’m fed up of this. I wish he had killed me when he had the chance.

  
“I’ve never polished boots before sir.” I said quietly, not expecting a reply. He sighs deeply and goes back to his reading. I hate to see yourself so subservient, so broken. It makes my stomach acid rise in my throat. I miss the wild thing you used to be.

  
Finally I finish my work, it's as good as I’m going to get it. I suppose that I will get better with time. Slowly and methodically I put away the brushes and the polish and the rags, cleaning up the remanence of the embarrassment I suffer. I expect him to sigh again and tell me to leave his presence, but he doesn’t.

  
I keep my head down but I can feel his eyes on me.

“I’m sorry my appearance is distasteful to you sir.” It shouldn’t matter to me, but it’s just another grain of salt in the wounds he gave me.

“Kiss my boots, slave.” I inhale sharply, gauging his intentions, he wasn’t kidding. Kylo Ren doesn’t kid. I reach out with my energy and brush against his, feeling him out a little.

  
“Am I not demeaned enough sir?” I whisper, still as death and just as cold, waiting for another blow. My master is not a kind man, I feel more like a whipping boy than a handmaiden.

  
“You are demeaned enough when I decide you are, just as I decide when you are worthless enough to die. As it stands, you have enough worth in you still to kiss. My. Boots. Slave.” His tone crisp and sharp and caustic as he leans forward in his enormous chair, watching me watch him. The tension so thick I can feel it like dark water between the two of you.

  
I bite the inside of my mouth and shake my head in resistance before my defiant tongue betrays my resolve.

  
“Aelin.” I look your master in the eye as I speak, and for a second the word hangs in the air like static electricity, crackling and swarming with energy. He looks flustered, for a split second.  
“What?” He shakes his head and the crackling energy between you dissipates, fear settles deep into your gut, cold as ice. Maybe I will get that mercy killing.

  
“My name.” I speak slowly, quietly, matter of fact and never breaking eye contact. Peripherally I see his hands clench and unclench around the arms of the chair I’m not permitted to sit in. “it is Aelin Thevri.” He appears transfixed, I can’t read his energy or his face, he seems too tranquil, his attention to rapt. His eyes bore a hole in mine, and I do not let myself waver. This, like all other things here, is a test. I start to let my anger pent up, getting ready to fight, or flee, whichever comes first.

  
Slowly he stands up, towering over me as I kneel. I hear him exhale twice. He must be contemplating his next move, strange because I have never seen him to be methodical or contemplative. Finally, he speaks, and I steel myself.

  
“Your name, is irrelevant. People have names, but you are a slave. And you will die a slave.” I hear the anger in his voice, gritty and low and through crooked teeth. My father always told me it was unbecoming to speak through your teeth. Slithering, sneakily I start to feel the invisible vice around my throat once again, he does not believe me to be a threat, merely a pawn, a plaything. He believes me to soon be dead, but I have other plans. A moment of weakness, a moment to seize. I am ready this time.

  
In a rush, I throw myself and everything my mind has to my feet and at him in a wall of hatred and force. The air leaves his lungs in a great whoosh as he flies back into the chair, held down unrelentingly by my rage. I stand over him as he did to me. I am not so different in this way, but he is not an innocent.

  
“I am no man's slave. You are a small and pathetic thing who fears a little girl.” I bask in the sight of his eyes flickering in panic, dancing before me. His body is frozen and his skin taking on an interesting purple/ blue complexion. My hatred for him washes over me and I revel in it, warmed by it in the astonishing cold of space.

  
“I will have my rights on this ship. I am not your slave or anyone else's. I am not your property. Do. you. Understand?” I release my hold, his gasp is desperate and gorgeous as it reverberates around the room. The rage behind his eyes in dampened by his fear. He knew I was strong, at least enough to get as far as the launch bay, but not anything of this magnitude. I hardly knew I could do this either, but enough is enough. I want to set his skin ablaze like he did to me, I want to hold him in cold contempt like he locked me away, I want him to know the indefinite silence and darkness I was subjected to. I want him to suffer as I did, as I do.

  
I want him to beg for mercy at my feet.

  
“A Force user?” He gasped around his words and grits his teeth in the crushing pain that surrounds him. I can feel my energy running out, weakening around me as it’s used up. All of the emotions of my plight swirl around my mind, again tears prick at the corners of my eyes as my vision blurs with the exertion. In one last push I sprint for my room, sobbing against the closed door as I slump against it. I released him from his pain but I am not safe from him. Some time later I find the strength to crawl to my meager bed and lay in a restless grey sleep.

  
Kylo Ren does not sleep well that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this didn't have any Space Sin in it, it just didn't feel like the right time...yet. We'll see how far this goes yes? Let me know what you think so far and thanks for reading!


	7. Tacit Agreement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PSA: changes have been made to this chapter that change the story line. If you are reading after 5/10/17 this does not effect you.

I woke groggily to a gentle hand on my shoulder, rocking me slowly into reality, I blearily turned over to grumble at whoever it was but my room was empty. ‘Stupid mind tricks’ I grumbled rather loudly as I sat up in bed. I could feel him bristling from across his rooms, through whatever strange channel now twists and turns between you like tiny threads. I contemplated acting like he wasn’t able to wake me up and rest the remainder of the cycle, but I knew he would pester me into submission. The first thing I learned here is that everything hurts, the second is that Kylo Ren is one tenacious bastard. I don’t want to admit that I am in a slightly better humor today, but only because I don’t want to bid before an item is presented. However I  do feel lighter knowing that there is a real and profound power resting inside of me, even if it took a near death encounter. Besides, there’s a noticeable shift in energy within our shared rooms, less hostile and tense. Subservience suits him. 

I try to put your finger on the exact feeling as I dress in my uniform. Plain black, neat and fitting, my head covering pulled over curly, brown hair. At least the socks are warm. There’s an odd wistfulness in the cloth, I miss the light and airy drapes of my clothes,  _ my  _ clothes. Sighing as I feel the impatience radiating off him, he sits in the commons, subtle senses heightened after the events of days past. He’s licking his wounds. Whatever it was that took over in me left it’s mark, my head throbs and my muscles are sore, but I feel powerful for the first time in my life, even in this hell. Perhaps more profound than I was, like I’m no longer singular. It’s not an altogether unwelcome change. I take your time about opening the door and stepping into the same space as the reason I’ve been suffering.

He’s standing across the room from me now, his face exposed and carefully composed. Though he’s in finer clothes than usual. His plain sackcloth robes are replaced by luxurious tapestry and fur. They’re still dark in palate but accented with the darkest of gunmetal grey. I can tell he paid extra attention to his appearance, maybe he was trying to waste time like me this morning. 

“I um” he started to speak, obviously uneasy, perhaps for the first time in his life. This is the first time I had ever heard him like this, I had to  bite back a laugh by biting my tongue. “You should speak to Supreme Leader Snoke.” I could feel the tension radiating off him, his constant trying to be one step ahead as though I could actually best him. He’s treating me like a feral thing just like his stormtroopers did when they took me. But I’m not nearly as malicious as he is, I won’t hurt anyone, even him, without a proper reason to. But at the end of it I know his uneasy statement it isn’t really a suggestion.

“Fine then, let's go.” I start to move towards the door, but stop sharply, turning on him again once more, if not just to see him jump a little. Oh how things have changed.  “Oh wait,” I shove my palm against the panel against the wall, the screen turns read instead of green and emits an angry beep at my attempt to open the door. “I don’t have clearance to anything outside these rooms because I’m a  _ slave.” _ I drag out the last word just has he has done, staring him down as I speak. The anger runs hot and perfect in my veins. 

He all but rolls his eyes at me as he easily crosses the remaining space, his much larger form shoving mine out of the way without touch. He places his palm against the plate, grumbles loudly in his thoughts, types in an impressively long passcode, then turns around and grabs my arm by the wrist quite firmly. For a second frenzied panic flashes through my mind, but he only uses it to press against the plate where his own once was. The panel turns green and beeps happily at me as the door slides open. 

“You won’t escape again. This is in your blood, you can’t escape  _ us. _ ” He deadpans.

“Even if I could, it would only be a matter of time before you would find me again.” I answer.

I sigh in satisfaction as I start to step across the threshold, but to my disdain I run headfirst into an invisible wall, landing flat on my ass, Kylo Ren above me struggling to hold in laughter though his face is impressively smooth. His thoughts betray his stoic facade.  

“You can’t wear that.” Is all he says, voice flat, but there is an amusement not so thinly veiled. 

“I don’t have anything else, you took my clothes when you  _ abducted me _ .” Does he see this inane little interlude as petty revenge for my overpowering him? His immaturity and bitterness runs deeper than I had originally thought. 

“Hold you tongue or have it cut from your head.” He mumbles as he stalks out of the room, I tap the toe of my boot impatiently. When he returns he’s carrying a garment bag on a hook.

“Do you often keep women's clothing around for mysterious meetings?” I ask more quietly as I take the bag from him, it’s heavier than it looks. I swear he almost smirks.

“It’s Captain Phasma’s.” His voice is measuredly cool. There’s a secret just beneath the surface but I don’t dare overstep the invisible line between us, this morning’s detente we both seem to have agreed to. I turn over my shoulder and re-enter my modest rooms.

I’m not sure what I expected, but this isn’t it.

It was much too long and wide for me. The startlingly airy cloth falls off my shoulders, draping around my chest and pooling heavily at my feet like dark water. The crimson of the hemline dilutes and morphs into black as it travels up my figure. The sleeves are more like bellows, extending far past my hands and draping themselves all the way to the floor. I secure the faintly sweet smelling dress to my body with the wide black belt about my small waist, similar to Kylo’s obi if I’m quite honest with myself. The First Order is nothing if not fashionable it seems. 

I slip my quite small feet into the dainty looking flat slippers that I found in the outside pocket of the bag, but they are much too big and would fall off as I walk. I decided to go without, the dress will hide my feet anyway. The thick black gloves happen the same way, found too large and discarded. I wonder idly if that is how he sees me, like gloves made much too large. 

A quiet euphoria washes over me as I release the wildness of my hair from it’s slave confines, it washes over my shoulders and down my back, framing my face and creating a halo of curls around me. I slide the jet hair comb into the locks on the crown of my head, pinning it in place and allowing the thinnest black veil to fall over my shoulders. For the first time in my life, I  feel rather regal. Had I had the time or the youth I would have twirled about. But as it were, I had business to attend too, after all, what is left of my life is still at stake and I need to find a way out of all this. 

Slowly and carefully I exit my room, taking a great amount of care to not trip on any part of my long dress or sleeves. This is not a dress for riding into battle. I feel a bit like a party decoration. All the same I feel a ripple run around me, but I brush it off as I and Kylo Ren leave. I never once thought I would be standing here, beside the Master of the Knights of Ren. I wish I wasn’t. But he’s the only way out. 

He walks a few paces in front of me, an action that just about screams  _ She is not my equal _ . I don’t necessarily mind being separated from that monster in any case. I notice a change in the reactions people have to me now, every stormtrooper stops to salute the pair of us as we both take a slightly leisurely pace. Others bow and avert their eyes in our presence. It should feel wonderful to bask in the attentions, but a knot of nervousness has coiled deep in my belly and I have to remind myself that these people are not only my captors, they are my killers and my undoing. I can feel the darkness in the air as we near the final destination, and it is certain that no amount of pretty clothes can protect me from the Supreme Leader. My ‘abilities’ as they have been named are untrained and raw, but there nonetheless. More powerful than I ever thought I could be, than I ever knew before I had to fight for my life. And here I am once more in the lion's den. 

Ren and I both take a deep breath before I step into the astoundingly massive chamber, completely dark save for one shaft of cold light that streams down from some unknown place above and lands on the platform before the equally enormous throne. I follow Kylo’s lead as he folds himself into a full bow, sinking to my knees before the Supreme Leader. I know none of his features, my head is bowed and my hands tremble with the warm swirling force of the purest darkness around us. 

“Rise child.” Slowly and gravely he speaks, bass voice reverberating all around the chamber. Gracefully I rise from the pool of fabric and look up into the vast blackness of his visage. I think quietly that he must be older than time itself. 

“Correct, Kylo Ren. The Force is very strong in this one, though it is not what we had originally discussed, is it not?” Snoke gestures in my direction with his head and a crooked finger as he speaks. I feel Kylo swell with pride next to me, the smug bastard. “The darkness is alive and swirling within her, a being in its own right. You have much to learn Aelin Thevri. Your power is formidable, but unskilled. You are foolish yet.” He looks down on me with what I surmise is pride, but I feel more like breeding stock. 

“I will teach her the ways of the Force, Supreme Leader.” Kylo asserts eagerly beside me, leaning forward and projecting his wishes into the energy around him. If I didn’t hate him so much I would likely find it endearing.  _ Some prodigal son. Hah. _ I think to myself. Eerily, I begin to  feel a tickling in the back of my mind, subtle but worryingly present. No effort of brushing it off makes it leave. 

“You may teach her the ways of the Force, but she will ultimately teach you the ways of the darkness and ultimately, power. You are still in conflict, a useless state. Do not bolster your pride with hollow promise.” Snoke volleys, Ren’s pride wounded, he shrinks back into himself to brood on the Supreme Leader’s sentiments, and I all but smirk in satisfaction. 

I take a careful few steps forward so that I am in the most potent light and sink once again to the very deepest of curtseys, but this time I turn my face up towards the light. 

“I feel my power growing by the day, and I offer my thanks to the Supreme Leader for his wisdom in all matters.” I bow your head once again until you feel a gentle nudge of energy causing my to float back to my feet. I know this is a falsehood, but the truth is not worth your life in this moment, no matter how acridly it tastes. 

“How does it feel my dear, do lose all that has once made you?” He draws this out, enjoying every syllable. I bite my tongue. 

“Liberating. This hatred I feel has now shown me the way, Supreme Leader.” I mean it this time. I’m far too curious to leave this place without learning just how far I can push this, just how long it will take me to break the Knight of Ren for all that he has done to me. 

“Kylo Ren, master of the knights of Ren, should you manage to train this girl well, she will bring you an empire to rival that of the late Lord Vader.” I gasp audibly, thoughts flooding in a million different directions with a million different feelings like a swirling galaxy of stars, pinpricks in the darkness. I feel the rage and ache of what has been lost, the bitterness and resentment towards the First Order, but also the cool shiver of destiny, profound and demanding and  _ calling _ out to me in the vast dark- filling me with life and dense, heavy energy. I slowly back towards where I once stood as equals with Kylo Ren, careful to not allow all of my emotions to seep through the air between you. I am as still as stone though the slump in my shoulders may reveal me yet. 

 

Amazingly enough, I wait until I am once again in our shared quarters before I explode at him once again, though I am certain that he could hear me grinding my teeth all the walk back and feel your rage in waves that would rival a tempest. 

“So that is why. Why I was ripped from my life, why I was kept and tortured and enslaved, to build you an empire?” My hands are balled into fists as I shout at him. His back is turned towards me. Did he think he was going to walk back into his rooms and be washed of what he owes me? _Not while I still breathe._

He turns over his shoulder.

“No.” He breathes. “But you are force-sensitive and that makes you dangerous. Because I was told I am too conflicted to defend what I have built for  _ myself _ .” He’s seething quietly now, I can see it in the grooves of his scowling face, which was previously smooth and aristocratic, the fire in his eyes dark eyes that looks like molten amber. 

“I am not a pawn, or a warship or whatever you will make of me. I belong to no man, especially not a monster like  _ you _ !” I’m screaming, I’m stomping towards him, unbridled, too close to the flame for my own good, looking up at him letting your eyes bore holes in his thick, pompous skull. The magnitude of my emotions clouding over every thought and feeling like a storm. 

I never saw him reach for his lightsaber.

But there it is, close enough to feel the heat against your the delicate skin of my face. 

“You may be powerful, but you know  _ nothing _ .” His voice is eerily low and calm and his face once again a smooth facade. But only that, a facade. I pick up no energy signature. It is as though he has left his body. As though he has died and come back to destroy the living like an avenging demon.

The moment stretches out between us for ages. I dare not breathe too deeply and cause a graze of the blade of his saber down the side of my face, scaring me for all my life. Rather, we watch each other, desperately trying to predict what the other will do before they do it like caged animals. I can feel him prodding at my mind but I shut him out, he is not as skilled as Snoke and he does not try to force his way in again. Very slowly he lowers his weapon and I step out of his space, still in my stupor and still holding his furious gaze I stagger towards my rooms. Finally, I turn away from him, from everything.

From somewhere over my shoulder, I hear his distinctive rumble, “Your training begins tomorrow.” 

I wish he would have just killed me. 


	8. Mind, Body, Soul

Your days begin early, earlier than when you were nothing. Now you are something, a very important something, whether you liked it or not. 

You could feel his gaze on you, heavy and persistent from where he was seated across the room. Your concentration faltered, the wind left your struggling lungs as Captain Phasma landed another well placed blow against your stomach. Continuing to stagger about the ring you kept your cloth wrapped hands in a defensive position. You tried desperately to keep from being battered completely. It was a vain effort. Slowly and heavily you swung at your opponent, but swiftly she ducked around your reach. In a flash of white-blonde hair and used a free pivoting leg to sweep your own out from under you. Your back on the mat beneath you your chest heaved and sweat that had dripped into your brows travels down your temples and into your stinging eyes. 

“That was sloppy.” His judgmental voice grates against your tired nerves. If you weren’t so exhausted you would get up and punch him right in his stupid face. You know he hears that particular thought loud and clear, a less than kind sentiment comes back at you in return. “It’s like you’re not even trying to get any better.” You think idly to yourself that you might have a broken rib. 

“It’s like I’ve had a week of instruction and you have me sparing a battle experienced Captain. Also I’m being forced to train, I don’t want to get better I want to go home.” You wheezed from your hopefully final resting place. You could see Phasma shifting back and forth on her feet in your peripheral vision, she hasn’t even broken a sweat. 

“She’s pulling her punches you know. It’s better to learn from someone with enough experience to not actually wound you.” He sounded bored. You wanted to wring his neck. He’s pretending the second half of what you said didn’t happen. 

“She’s pulling her punches?” You ask incredulously, turning your head you could see a hint of an uneasy smile behind her severe facade. A bubble of hysterical laughter makes its way out of your mouth but is quickly snuffed out by the pain in your sides that follow. Your wounds felt pretty ‘actual’ if you do say so yourself.

“Captain that will be all for today.” He stands from where he was and crosses the room easily in his casual training suit, nearly the same as yours but with red trim instead of plain black. Relief washes over you now that your daily beat-down has ended. You move to sit up but only make it far enough to lean on your bruised elbow. 

“Sir.” Was her only reply, quickly she saluted the shadow man and made a hasty retreat A thought flashes through your mind that it must be difficult for her to train you in close combat, to teach you through pain but only enough to make you better, for fear of angering your overly-controlling body guard. Maybe she doesn’t think those things, maybe she likes her job. Kylo bristles but says nothing about your presumptuous thoughts. You think only a little to yourself that you liked it more when you weren’t sharing a brain with anyone. 

“Stand up, we’re not done.” You internally groan at the thought of having to move your body any time soon, but haul what feels like one big bruise to its feet. 

“You need a new strategy.” He pinches the bridge of his nose in a more dramatic way than necessary. Obviously tired of the failure that is you. Shame creeps up into your shoulders. 

“I don’t want one.” You let the bitterness drip from your voice as you speak, slightly out of breath and shoulders rounded in.   
He didn’t address your disrespectful tone but did narrow his eyes into beady slits at you. 

“Attack me.” He dropped easily into a broad fighting stance.  
“Gladly” A peculiar tickling brushed against your mind as you threw a set of alternating punches, both of which he easily blocked, you tried to use your right foot to roundhouse kick him in the ribs but he caught it in his hand and pushed you away before you could make contact. You huffed in frustration.

“That’s not fair. Get out of my brain.” You rubbed irritably at your temples with your raw fingertips. 

“There is no fair in war. Stop fighting like you’re Phasma. Try again.” He settled back into his stance, you took as deep a breath as you could manage and followed. This time you went right for a leg sweep. 

The only problem is that he didn’t budge from his stance. 

He rolled his eyes and grabbed you roughly by the shoulders to haul you back up to your feet. “You aren’t as big as your opponents, stop using broad, high-momentum moves against threats larger than you.” He drops into his stance, you follow him again, but suddenly he’s much, much closer to you, pressed up against you. Your hands are pinned and you’re forced to step back, but he follows. “You’re going to have to get in as close as you can and use small movements that are more efficient.” He jabs you in the side with protruding knuckles three times in quick succession, as you double over he catches your jaw in his wide palm and sweeps a leg swiftly behind your knee. As he pulls his leg back and pushes your head away, you go tumbling down to the ground, head thumping against the mat painfully. 

“I suppose that makes sense.” You squeeze your eyes shut as the room swims around you, face scrunching up in pain. It’s almost like you’re a musician by trade, not a soldier or a knight or whatever you’re supposed to be. 

“That would have been some really nice information to have a couple of hours ago.” He looks at your pointedly again but doesn’t react to your jabs. You think to yourself that it’s really out of character for him to retain that amount of self control. Maybe he was trying to make more of an example out of himself. You feel him overhearing your thoughts. 

“Get out of my brain.” You deadpan at him.   
“Clean yourself up before evening lessons.” Was all you got out of your ‘mentor’ before he swept out of the room in a more dramatic than necessary kind of way. You knew you should force yourself to get up and find a way back to your quarters to clean up and change. But a good majority of your mind thought that laying on the mat where you were seemed like a pretty good idea as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading so far!


	9. Interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey here's some light Space Sin, enjoy! Thanks for reading!

The solitary joy of your life aboard the _Finalizer_ is your ease of access to flowing water. You take hot showers, cold showers, baths and steams. Hours spent basking in what previously you could never have among the dunes.

These brief interludes of slick tubs and blessedly vulnerable skin wash with warm inviting liquid are truly something to revel in. You stretch so long and so good it pulls from you a groan of pleasure. You lean your head against the edge of the bath and for a short while let it go completely blank. You do not worry about your life, or your livelihood, your family, or your circumstance. You make yourself to let go, if only for a moment.

After a good while you slowly come back to yourself, idly you force ripples over the surface of the water of your bath, bones and muscles aching, you are an abstract painting of wounds. Stinging and throbbing in places, you finally dissolve into the sediment you were born from where it collects near the drain. The end of your languished and stolen time between training sessions.


	10. CONTINUED

Your mental training as a Knight of Ren is not any less difficult. Your mentor is exacting, clever, and ruthless. 

You sit cross legged on the floor of the darkened room, he across from you. Your eyes are closed, but were they opened you wouldn’t be able to him anyway. But you feel no deprivation of the senses, rather they are all heightened. You feel his presence with you just as he feels you with him. Your shared breathing cyclical, heartbeats converge. In this moment you and him are one, lines between singular blurred. The Darkness within and around you both stretching like the infinite blackness of space itself. Images of empires and battlefields flit through your mind at a pace greater than light. Thoughts become a superhighway of strategy and memory alike. 

He only shows you victory. 

You aren’t given that choice. 

He sees everything. He’s seen your family, the way your mother's round face looked as she sang, the joy that hung on your sisters smile. The songs you will never transcribe, the way the sunrise looked through the hazy morning dust. He takes and takes and takes. Your assignment is to push him out, push him away. But each time he leaves he takes some with him. Pushing and pulling at the memories until they become hollow shells of their former lives within you, disappearing in the sand you come from. Colors fade and faces warp. He is destroying everything you have always been. 

The hum of effort rings throughout you, and ascends into a piercing whine as he retracts into his own mind once again. You feel blessedly empty. 

“Again.” It is not a question, it is not a demand. It only is. 

Once more the familiar weight at the front of your skull and the pull across your chest becomes visions. You’ve tried building walls, you’ve tried shoving him out. He is too large for your bones and too strong for your spirit. The Force may be strong with you but your body is weak and he knows it. 

You must survive, just as you always have. 

You recede into yourself, becoming as small as one can be, concentrated like dye. I am the darkness, it is me. I am nothing more than a shadow in the night. I cannot be seen nor heard nor felt. I am nothing. I am everything. I am darkness. You repeat to yourself until you feel that you have faded away from your body. Come away from your mortal coil. One with the energy and the air you are, connected to your master by the bond you share, but at a distance. For the first time you can observe him without fear of being observed. It is the closest to freedom and death as you have ever been. 

“How can one invade that which is not there?” He voice resounds throughout the room. Your mental studies have centered around countering the Jedi Mind Tricks. Obviously he fears that his own ability will not be enough. You know he resents the way you see through his facade. 

“As one becomes less, one becomes more.” Your voice startles him, you heard him jump and fabric rustle at the sound. Satisfaction washes through you. Slowly you come back into existence, energetically materializing in front of him once more. His eyes are heavy on you.

“Say it.” His conviction warms your core and moves up to your throat, trapping your true feelings under your desire to hone your skills just enough to get you away from all of this. You know the words by heart now, repeated many times a day. You are eerily aware that you’re being indoctrinated. But this is the only way to properly master the ways of the Force. It is a quiet death and resignation. 

You breathe deeply. 

“Peace is a lie, there is only passion” You feel the heat of anger roll through your veins, warming you and keeping you alive. Coursing around your body at a feverish pace. “Through passion I gain strength” Your lungs fill deeper than they used to, your mind feels stretched out and infinite, you’re starting to understand the basics of combat. You are strong. Look at all you’ve been through. Survivor. “Through strength I gain power” Kylo’s energy intensifies around you, undulating with your own, different but not completely separate. “Through power, I gain victory” Your tongue feels heavy in your mouth as you speak. 

“Through victory,” His deep voice joins yours in harmony, “My chains will be broken, and the Force will set me free.”


	11. Ghosts of the Past

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PSA: changes have been made to this chapter as of 7/9/16

Your head rests on your pillow with weight not belonging to it. It feels both too full and too empty, mixed up and jumbled and all you want is sleep. Lots and lots of restful, uninterrupted sleep. A simple thing. But a luxury nonetheless.

Aware of your unconsciousness but not dreaming, you found yourself away from your body. You take your time wandering about the ship as though the walls and floors do not exist. Here you are blissfully unobserved, no more than the recirculated air aboard the ship. The night watch is quiet, most personnel are sleeping, but you amuse yourself with thoughts pondering what it is that stormtrooper's dream of. You are aware that you do not have a body in this state, one with the Force and one with your own self you travel as a shadow of your waking consciousness. This is all unfamiliar. You are not alarmed. When you are one with the Force there is no danger.

Until suddenly there is a great, magnetic pull, a need to be somewhere that is not the translation library you were previously investigating. It sets a fire blazing through you, an itch, and pull you cannot resist and must be sated. You travel faster than sound, faster than light.

In a great whoosh the world stills around you long enough for to realize that you are no longer yourself.

 

“Grandfather I don’t know what to do. I feel as though I’m being torn apart.” You sit tensely across from a pedestal containing the remnants of a gnarled, fire-scorched mask similar to your own. Head in your hands and nails scratching idly at your hairline your exhaustion begins to show, in your bowed shoulders and sagging eyelids.

“Show me the way” your, his, our, voice breaks.

“Please.” In the most devastating way your heart pulls inside your broad chest. Earnest tears of anger and loneliness make way to the corners of your eyes but do not fall. You feel emptied out and filled up with things you are not, a vessel for Snoke’s will and nothing more. The great failure of an empire rather than the prodigal son. You tilt your chin up to the plain grey ceiling, closing your eyes hard and hoping with everything that you are that you are doing what is right.

From inside your head your stare at yourself, panting, sobbing, lightsaber at your hip still. Pale round face speckled and reddened with heartbreak, allowed to feel with the true spectrum of emotion for the first time in a long time. In a strange moment of convergence and separation you think distinctly, lucidly _Dry your eyes, please don’t cry. You could be strong if you would just hold on a little longer._ Your father said that once, not yours, his. The man with the broad shoulders and stained fingertips.

“The pull to the Light is too much Grandfather…” More rib-crunching sobs crash through your body. “Show me the way of the Darkness, I will never let you down again.” He wiped furiously at his eyes with his long sleeves, but the tears continued to fall. Lonesome and without comfort or contact. Silently you watch from the inside, feeling everything alongside your master but without any control. A repetition of a memory flashes across your shared consciousness: head bowed under the weight of the bandage across your chest and side you hear his fiercely cold voice like tombstones grinding together, _“Let it heal on its own accord as a reminder of your miserable and absolute failure.”_  You remember picking at the scabs for weeks. Your older, more calloused fingers ghost across the ridge of the scar you bear. It was supposed to be a trophy of a hard won victory, now it mars the visage of what could have been.

“Her fate is so decided, the Darkness so strong. Why can it not be that easy for me? Why won’t you help me?!” You’re angry now, furious. Fists slam against knees, standing, pacing. Gesturing wildly against the ever stoic mask on the pedestal. A madman. A genius. A child.

If you could gasp you would have.

“I hate her for it.” You pace, you stop, you gesture, you pace. A cycle. The tears are gone now, replaced by a loathing so deep you feel it in your bones.  

You stop now, decidedly, staring deep into the eyes of the mask of your, no his, no our, torturer. Our personally appointed headsman, for surely he will be the death of us.

“Grandfather.” You breathe deeply, cleansingly.

“Darth Vader, I _will_ finish what you started.” He steps forward, towards his own helmet as you fall out of his body and back into yours.

 

You wake in sticky tangled sheets with your night clothes plastered to you with sweat, hair a mess around you and very crooked in your bed. Your head aches and your breath is gone but at least you are in your own body. You only wish you could wait until morning to try to process all you’ve seen.

The rest of the night is not nearly so restful.

 

_She is progressing quickly, but you must do better. The girl and Skywalker have almost completed her training. Do not fail me in this._  Supreme Leader Snoke’s command rings through Kylo Ren’s mind.

“Yes master.” Kylo speaks aloud and kneels before the relic once more, alone this time, nearly shaking with fear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Make sure to leave me comments as feedback so I know what you like and what I should improve for the future!


	12. Gilded Cage

You don’t want to empathize with him. Your object of hatred. Your object of annoyance. Your object of horror and fear and all of those other disturbing emotions. 

But you do. 

You felt everything he felt, every agonizing second of shame, fear, cold rejection, aching loneliness. His helpless hopelessness he hides so very well. His own, and thought to be private, hell. You’ve seen that his soul is an open and festering wound, red and angry and oozing disease filled pus made of loveless and ruthless control. 

He’s been distant, subdued to you and on edge to everyone and everything else. In combat training he quietly seethes at your slow but gradual progress, you leave each session with Captain Phasma a little less worse for wear than the last. In your most recent morning session you even got a really good, solid punch on your opponent- you felt him almost swell with pride. Almost. That doesn’t change the fact that he takes out every slight irritation on his officers, and any innocent enough equipment. His lightsaber has not been lacking in use or exercise. Day by day you feel his resolve breaking down around him.

Your mental training is still brutal but you are improving, at a rate that alarms your teacher though you would never hear him admit to it. He knows your connection to the Force is much stronger than his, and he either doesn’t know that you’ve invaded his perception or pretends that night never happened. Regardless, though you are progressing on your own and you can feel him falling behind when, according to your bond he should be by your side. You may have the Force, but he still holds all of the cards. It’s quite the predicament. 

You’re less concerned with how your merging happened than you are with how your reaction measures up against reason in the aftermath. You want to not care about him. You want to be cold and calculating but you know that he too is human. And while he is a being of the Force-  
“Focus girl. You’ve missed nearly half of my dictation. That is unacceptable.” He looks at you with what can only be described as contempt. 

“Yes General.” You finish typing his many bullet-pointed agenda into the holopad before you. You swear he thinks you’re a complete lackwit. Just because you were engrossed in more important thought than patrol coordinates does not mean he has any right to be so, so abrasive. You miss working with your hands. The sadist that commands you often finds reason to strike, unacceptable work, he says. He has more information on you than he deserves, knows your weaknesses, your level of schooling. He is a monster that thinks himself clever. Out of sheer will to live you work for him, knowing that as soon as you outlive your value you won’t be outliving anything. 

You do resent being a secretary to possibly the world's most unpleasant being, though.   
Even Kylo Ren has his bearable moments.   
You prefer Phasma over all of them, and it's in her job description to batter you relentlessly. 

“Regrettably, for you to be of any real use to me I am going to have to elevate your security clearance.” You blink widely at him from where you stand across the room from his broad, dark wood desk. You are careful to not let any real emotion leak from you and into the space you begrudgingly share. You don’t know how Force-sensitive Hux is, but you aren’t willing to find out by incurring his calculating wrath. He rubs at the bridge of his angular nose like an old man, his youth betrays him but his arrogance makes up for the deficit in intimidation factor. You know his well tailored uniform is meant to make him look larger than he is, and you know your well fitted training clothes are meant to make you look exactly as you are. You understand the difference. “I know, unlikely. But I have no other option and I figure that if you try anything that would compromise the First Order’s security that you could be dealt with swiftly.” He looks into your eyes as his words hang in the air between you. He has his understanding, you have no choice. 

“I am honored to serve the First Order, General.” There is only a hint of a sneer in your face and words, you have always been proud. The words are acid on your tongue. 

He speaks casually, without even looking up from his own holopad.

“Watch your sharp tongue girl, or have it cut from your head.” 

You sigh and return to your data entry. This routine gets rather old after a while. He comments, you riposte, he threatens, you carry on. Time is cyclical. You’re no longer afraid of your imminent execution, rather you’re afraid of how they will delay it. 

There is power in what you hold over them, they don’t really want you dead, you’re entirely too valuable to throw away without salvaging something. They want to study you and decide which parts are valuable enough to be saved from being ripped apart and sold off like the scavengers do to obsolescent warships. 

You might be a warship but you will not let them take anything more from you. 

You will have to brace yourself for the isolation you had since learned to live with. A brutal independence that has been cultivated by years alone in a savage world. You have to do it, you’re quickly running out of appealing options. You must keep your wits about you before those too, are taken. 

But you know that this could be your last chance. You’ll have to be more careful this time, you think to yourself. The last was a close call, an evasion of a mercy killing. Should you fail this time, they will not hesitate to kill you. Like he said, swiftly. 

You suppose that if you cannot find anything to live for aboard the Finalizer that you should certainly try to find something to die for.   
You figure death can be a freedom. But this isn’t how you imagined it. 

 

Later that day as you fold and put away your training clothes, a profound sorrow washes over you, deep as an ocean. No one you love knows where you are, who has taken you. No one in the entire world knows what you have endured, what you have survived. A tear rolls over your now lean cheek, and you brush at it with newly calloused hand. You work to keep flashes of memory at bay. They don’t deserve to see. Not these things that mean so much. It doesn’t work for long, but you project with the images the distinct feeling of this is not for you. 

Your sister, with her glassy blind eyes and freckled face comes to mind and tugs at the strings of your heart like your fingers used to pluck at strings that sang. There are no melodies here, there is no love here. But your story should still be told, should it end on this floating fortress. 

 

In a room, very far away from your quarters, Kylo Ren feels a most peculiar sadness in his bones that most certainly is not his own. 

 

It is a long time before you are given enough length on your golden leash to have unrestricted access to the First Order system database.   
You quake in your regulation boots with the excitement and fear of it all. 

Your fingers are worn from your training and Hux’s incessant dictation. You know his holopad is voice compatible. He knows his holopad is voice compatible. And yet, he takes pleasure in watching your back bow as you become tired, making you stand next to the far corner of his desk to keep you awake. You are kept sleep deprived and hungry, but at least these days are you warm. You are not stupid enough to think that those actions are not purposeful. 

It is a longer time before you dare to search on your own, your fingers hovering over the small symbols. It takes two seconds to type: Oraevu. 

Home. 

It still exists. 

With so many planets terminated you had to know. Starkiller is so powerful, but your home, perhaps your family, still it exists, floating out in that great sea of blackness like a flower on water's surface.   
Something close to hope starts to leak out of your heart, but you trample it as fast as you can. No one can know that you have something to lose. 

You need something to write with. You need something to send a message with. The holopad is on a secure network, but you know from Hux’s document sharing that the network is shared with people that definitely should not see your act of treason. You would wait for days to pass to not arouse suspicion, but time is something you don’t have a lot of. You sigh in what has become never ending frustration. All too soon you’re thinking about what you want to say. You don’t know how long you’ll have to speak or type to your family, but you try your very hardest to keep your walls up, to not share. To keep yourself alive. This has to work. 

Why can’t the First Order just use parchment and ink like every other Creater-forsaken system in space?


	13. Seek and Destroy

“I said input the launch coordinates for the hyperspace jump through sector five, you inept lackwit.” You can hear Hux grinding his teeth as he stands over and behind you, you can feel his want to wring your neck. But Kylo Ren has him pinned into a corner of having to deal with you. It’s a delicious kind of spite that washes over you. Annoying Hux is one of your favorite pass-times aboard this prison.

“Sorry sir.” You type with as much vigor as your fingers can muster as they flit across the cool expanse of the screen.

“Take the rest of the evening off so that I can get something productive done during this day cycle.” He exhaustedly makes his way from where he stood over you to back behind his desk. For a moment you think you see a slight slouch in his shoulders, but the only part of him that bows is his head. He’s losing his patience with you. 

“Yes sir.” Was your measured reply, but secretly your heart hammered like a chromium mine pike in your chest. With elevated clearance and official time off. It was too easy. 

“Send in my compu-droid and get out of my sight.” He sits languished behind his desk with a measured spite reserved only for you. You no longer bristle at the tone he uses incessantly, You both hate each other, his arrogance and your contriteness, but neither of you can get rid of the other. Detente is not as sweet as you thought it would be. 

You don’t make any stops once you leave the Bridge and office wing. At a clipped pace you stride towards mechanics and salvage intake and maintenance. You know the ship well now after being forced to find and accompany Hux everywhere as he works, and Kylo’s need to have you in ruthless training as often as possible. Nearly a month of this, you think, no one will tell you exactly how long you’ve been here, not even the droids. 

Quietly you enter the central machine and salvage shop, bits and pieces of space junk and stolen ships coagulate like clotted blood. ‘Troopers stand about as the crooked scavengers and mechanics bargain and move about. You recede into yourself, unseen and unheard you move through the crowds of people with the half-pleasant work sounds that reverberate around the hangar. 

You fade back into existence just behind a solitary mechanic, he jumps at the sight of you but you wave a careful hand before him, first two fingers crossed and thumb gently resting on ring finger as you have been taught, pushing into his easy mind.

“Fetch me a functioning holo-monitor, and input service. Be quiet, tell no one.” You concentrate on the task at hand, but in the very back of your mind you feel Kylo push against you, you brush him off with a quick sentiment of frustration towards Hux. It’s just enough to throw him off your trail. You all but deflate with relief. 

“I’m going to go fetch you a functioning holo-monitor, and input service. I will tell no one and be quiet.” A glassy look falls over him, but he turns around and starts searching for the things you asked of him. 

“Ma'am, please present authorization for this maintenance sector.” You startle noticeably when the Stormtrooper behind you speaks, for a split second your concentration falters. You know you don’t have clearance for this sector, only offices and other things that are useless to you now. This is too close to a way out to be permitted. You raise your hand in front of you, and you look deeply into the slits where his eyes should have been. Sweat breaks on your brow, and your heart hammers within you with exertion. 

“This does not concern you or your orders. Move along.” A sharp pain shoots through the base of your skull, but you fight on. 

“This does not concern me.” In the Force trance he walks away, continuing his rounds, you watch for a moment before the mechanic returns with the cargo you so desperately need. Silently you take the goods from him and fade back into the shadows as you tuck them into your stupidly flowing cloak you’ve been given to fight the cold of the ship. The walk back to your private quarters is quiet. Kylo does not bother you again, you figure he must be busy committing genocide. 

You wait until long into the night, long after Kylo starts tossing and turning in his own room before you dare to set up your makeshift holo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to read my fic, it means a lot to me! Please leave me comments and feedback so that I know what you like and what I need to work on for future chapters.
> 
> Neurotically yours,  
> Decaf


	14. Thrown Off Course

Kylo Ren knows you’re up to something. He doesn’t know what or when and while he would certainly like very much to throttle you against the nearest flat surface for your insubordination, he needs you. He’s put a lot of work into training you to be his ultimate weapon, it would be such a shame to waste all of that. From the first time he felt your connection, the tiniest of threads in the vast cloth of the Force, he knew that you had to be found before the Rebellion could use you for their own. You were too powerful and too dangerous to be left alone. You still are, and terribly hard to deal with. 

So he goes to Supreme Leader Snoke. 

“You are sure then, that the girl will betray the First Order.” Snoke spoke slowly, purposefully. He was always one step ahead, always in Kylo’s head. It was humiliating and terrifying. Even after all of these years his voice still sends a chill up his spine. 

“No,” Kylo speaks then, voice not belonging to him but to the helmet he wears, though from the inside he can hear his own. “I do not think her clandestine activity is betrayal. But it is clandestine nonetheless.” He sighs heavily. 

“You cannot expect me to trust her, Master. She is not one of my Knights, not even of the First Order.” Kylo knows he is standing on shaky ground, yet keeps going. “I feel as though I am wasting my time on someone who will ultimately betray me and all that I have built.” 

“An astute observation my protege, though I should have you punished for your insolence, I have seen her mind. She does not want for escape nearly so much as she used to. The Order will do her good. Stay the course Kylo Ren.” The hologram fades out of existence before him, and he is finally able to relax his taut shoulders under the heaviness of his robes.


	15. Issues

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally some Space Sin! I hope you enjoy!

You’re sparring with your mentor when everything comes crashing down around you. 

“I know you’re hiding something from me.” He’s not wearing his mask today, and for a moment you think that perhaps you see hurt flash across his strangely aristocratic face. But those thoughts are secondary to the pure panic you feel at the words that hang between you like a fatal blaster bolt held midair. 

“What could I have to hide, I share a brain with you.” You continue your punching endurance drill. “If anything it’s you that’s hiding something from me.” You counter as you duck under a surprise swing from him. You’re getting better at the combat drills, your mirror has gotten used to seeing you with less bruising each day. 

“A fair point, but you’re not nearly as good at covering your tracks as you think you are.” You finish the exercise and start to relax your posture slightly, but not before he takes the opportunity to use the Force to sweep your legs out from under you. Suddenly the only view you have is him leaning over you from where you rest on the floor of the training room. 

“Hux showed me the security footage.” You squint up at him as the bright lights on the ceiling shine through the ends of his ridiculous hair. Ever so carefully you probe his mind, looking for feelings of intent, for specific memories of catching you red handed. 

“No he didn’t” Worry doesn’t crease his brow really, but his eyes widen in surprise at you nonetheless. 

“You can keep as quiet as you like, but one of these days someone is going to catch you Aelin.” He chides you as you slowly stand back up. What he doesn’t know is that long after he’s gone to sleep you wake to assemble your makeshift holo-transmitter. It’s difficult to work in the darkness with machines you aren’t super familiar with but you’re making it work, even if you do have to be so careful as to not raise suspicion.

Obviously you’ve failed at the not raising suspicion part.

But then again you share a brain with a homicidal sociopath. 

 

You’ve run into a problem with your holo-transmitter. 

You’re covered to the elbow in grease, and your small desk is covered in some very incriminating wiring, and just before you’re ready to try out what you’ve assembled you realize the error of your ways. There is nothing you can do to fix this. 

You don’t have a power source. 

So you get angry. 

Furious. 

You throw the offensive hunks of metal into the trash chute, screaming every profanity you know, in every language you know. Your curse this place, these people, their plans. Everything. It’s cathartic in the best of ways as you flail and scream about. 

“What are you doing?” Kylo Ren turns towards you in the dim light of your chamber, you didn’t even feel him wake or the door open, yet you turn on him and his deep, groggy sleep-addled voice with eyes wide and hair wild. You’re sure you look like a small, ravenous thing.

You feel hollowed out and filled up with hate.

There was a small eternity of miserable silence between the two of you, as though it had swallowed your voices whole. 

“I don’t have time for this.” He rubs an eye as he stalks back out of your chambers. It is in this moment that your fury breaks and you realize that this is the greatest state of undress you’ve ever seen him in, as you follow him and his strictly lounge-pants clad body out into the common living area. He sat heavily in one of the chairs as you stood before him, still surprised at your circumstance, still angry from before. 

The way you look down at him from the swell of your heaving breast, your eyes so hard, so buckled down and flinty makes him remember that you came from a desert, once. 

“You’ve killed me, everything I am, and forced me to live to grieve the loss.” You address him directly now, your voice is calm but the fury boils under your skin, making it crawl. 

“I will not grant you the death you think you wish for.” His voice is maddeningly impassioned, he knows you wish for the cool release, yet he will not give it.

“You do not know what I wish for!” He stands again as you scream. You want to rip your hair out, to claw at him, to take out every single moment of frustration you’ve endured. You want out, you want off this stupid ship, you want him out of your head. “Surely I will die, Kylo Ren, but not because of you. If you open up my heart and run your blood soaked hands down the walls you would know that it is like yours,”  
His wide palm slowly, time-stretchingly slowly, makes its way to your soft yet sunken cheek. Fingers run through just a slight bit of untamed curl. The touch was soft, but the hand dangerous.   
“Dark” 

He kisses like a man starved, hard and in a loveless way, mouth over yours controlling everything between you as though you are indeed a warship. His other hand finds the crest of your hip and holds you in a vice grip sure to leave a bruise. 

The hand in your hair pulls roughly at the mess, tilting your chin up so that his mouth can assault the skin exposed there the most sensitive part of yourself. You half expect him to rip it out with his teeth, but rather, his lips pull sparks of pleasure from you, he can feel your pleasure through the bond you share and you through him. His satisfaction, his anger, your anger, his hot breath near your ear that somehow causes chills to run down your spine to warm you at the core. Delicious sounds leave your usually restrained mouth only to be echoed by a pleasing rumble deep in the chest of your other body. 

His hands pull at the hem of your shirt as you both stumble back towards his chambers, knocking into various surfaces on your merry way. Shirt discarded you immediately press yourself in your exposed skin to his broad, taut chest. He is all hard lines and angles where you are plush and rounded. His hands make their way to the back of your chest-band.

Kylo unwraps it with adrenaline-shaky fingers, releasing your breasts to the cold air of the room around you, his room. Your nipples, dark and pert, pebble in the chill and he throws the band of cloth artlessly away from the two of you. He looks down on you, and you instigate, rolling your shoulders back and giving a devil-may-care lift of your chin, you are on display for this man. 

Swiftly he catches you by the waist and turns to toss you down on his bed not unlike the way he tossed your clothing. He leans over you again to place on your rebellious mouth another searing kiss, your hands working down his lean chest to pull at the waistband of his pants. He matches your actions by pulling yours down your legs and further onto the floor before stripping his own off, thick and heavy manhood standing before you not unlike its owner. 

Kylo Ren pushes your arms far above your head to hold you down as his mouth returns to yours, there are no words for this. He thumbs over the small birth control implant in your arm for only a moment before you feel his length and girth start to stretch you in the best of ways. 

Your pleasures mixes with his and undulates between you as he thrusts at an unrelenting pace, you can feel his perspective, his thrusting, how tight and warm you are for him as your legs wrap around his strong waist. He can feel you beneath him, soft and welcoming and wanting every inch of his dick. Your frustrations and anger tinge your pleasure red as you bite into his strong shoulder, he growls and holds you down harder. 

This action makes your hips tilt in a way that creates such delicious friction, you can feel yourself clenching around him as absolute filth pours from both your mouths. Your whole body is throbbing, Force pulsing around you, his pace somehow even faster. He’s close too and with a shout you fall off the edge of pleasurable pain and into the abyss, nearly blacking out from the sheer magnitude and intensity. As you clench around him he fills you with his essence, his seed, hot and fully as he groans into the crook of your elegant neck, breathing heavy between you. 

This man is a monster and he is stunningly crafted.


	16. Decisions

You don’t sleep lovingly in each other's arms. 

After you’re done with each other, breathing heavily and glistening with sweat, he rolls off you wordlessly. After a few moments you sit up, bones liquified and brain fuzzy, but when you finally get to your feet you feel a soft hand wrap around your wrist. You look down at your trapped hand before you look to his face, relaxed and sated but still there is an underlying sadness. He opens his mouth slightly before he speaks, lips still swollen and glistening, you feel your own tingle in turn. 

“Just tonight.” It’s a low whisper, a rumble barely heard. He softly tugs at your arm and you fall back into him like one falls from the highest peak. Every alarm in your system is telling you this is a dangerous move, a fatal flaw. But you cannot fight gravity. 

He sleeps wrapped around your back, a wide hand around your waist and face buried in your hair. For the first time since you arrived the bond you share is very quiet. But once again your mind is not.  
However dangerous this development is, it is equally advantageous. Though you have nothing material to barter with, you have your body. They need you alive, perhaps nights like tonight won’t be a single occurrence. You smile softly against the luxurious sheets of your mentors bed as he tightens his hold around your naked body. This is an advantage indeed. 

 

You’re both sitting up in bed, wrapped in the same dark sheet and about to get ready for the day when you're interrupted by your favorite sadist. 

“Sir your presence is requested urgently at the bridge under clearance.” Hux’s face remains impassive for the most part, the quirk of a judgemental and meticulously kept eyebrow betrays him. He’s all perfect uniform and clever glint in his eye, you may have mixed feelings towards Kylo and Captain Phasma, but this man you do truly despise. 

Kylo Ren bristles with irritation in response to the heavy blush in your cheeks and across your less than modestly covered body with a curt “Of course.” before General Hux turns on his shiny black heel and leaves you both to your ruined morning. You and your mentor don't have anything to say to each other, the remainder of your time in the same space is spent in monk-like silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading this far! It means so much to me to know that others enjoy my writing. I love this fandom dearly and this fic that started as just an idea has really taken on a life of it's own! Please feel free to leave me a comment or kudos, and I hope you have a great day. May the Force be with you!
> 
> Neurotically yours,  
> Decaf


	17. CONTINUED

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I haven't added to this in a few days, I've been traveling. But I am home now safely and glad to be back at your service to provide you with the finest in Space Sin. Thank you so much for reading!

You don’t sleep lovingly in each other's arms. 

You don’t. 

After you’re done with each other, breathing heavily and glistening with sweat, he rolls off you wordlessly. After a few moments you sit up, bones liquified and brain fuzzy, but when you finally get to your feet you feel a soft hand wrap around your wrist. Your eyes look down at your trapped hand, childlike and small within his large, wide grip before you look to his face, relaxed and sated; still there is an underlying sadness. He opens his mouth slightly before he speaks, lips still swollen and glistening, you feel your own tingle in turn. 

“Just tonight.” It’s a low whisper, a rumble of distant thunder after a storm. He softly tugs at your arm and you fall back into him, effortlessly.  
Every alarm in your system is telling you this is a dangerous move, a fatality waiting to happen. But you cannot fight gravity. 

He sleeps wrapped around your back, an arm around your waist and face buried in your hair. For the first time since you arrived the bond you share is very quiet, a campfire where an inferno used to live. But once again your mind is not.

To only yourself you think, however dangerous this development is, it is equally advantageous. Though you have nothing material to barter with, you have your body. They need you alive, perhaps nights like tonight won’t be a single occurrence. You smile softly against the luxurious sheets of your mentors bed as he tightens his hold around your naked body. This is an advantage indeed. 

 

You’re both lying in bed, wrapped in the same dark sheet and about to get ready for the day, languidly basking in the length of the moment and warm under the covers from the chill of deep space when your apparently light-footed sadist friend decides to pay you both a visit. 

“Sir, your presence is requested urgently at the bridge under clearance.” Hux’s face remains impassive for the most part, the quirk of a judgemental and meticulously kept eyebrow betrays him. He’s all perfect uniform and clever glint in his eye, you may have mixed feelings towards Kylo and Captain Phasma, but this man you do truly despise. You’re sure he’s seen Kylo in some rather compromising situations, more so than is now uncovered chest and disheveled hair, but this is a new personal low for yourself, breasts exposed like a common rent girl. 

Kylo Ren bristles with irritation in response to the heavy blush in your cheeks and across your less than modestly covered body with a curt “Of course.” before General Hux turns on his shiny black heel and leaves you both to your ruined morning. 

He was up and hurriedly getting dressed before the outer door to the quarters snapped closed. As he roughly pulled a black training shirt over his head he turned to you, all gentleness gone.

“This doesn’t mean you can be late for morning training with Phasma.” His voice was rough but there was a glint in his eye that looked almost like kindness. Standing now before him, completely naked in the chill of the ship you look this stunning monster in the eye.

“Yes master.” You aren't entirely sure why formality struck you at this time.

Time slows down.

Way down.

His eyes trace the way your mischievous lips curl around the words, in real time no more than a couple heartbeats, but for what feels like years. He knows the swell of your breast as you breathe deeply in the grogginess of morning, the expansion of your ribs. Once again his dangerous, gentle hand comes towards you, missing your tender cheek for the love-bitten expanse of your pale throat. He lets it rest there for a moment, the tip of his thumb and first finger against your jaw. He waits until his lips are lightly against yours before he squeezes at your neck just enough to remind you who it is you’re kissing- as though you could forget. It is a subtlety that says: mine. 

When he lets you go time snaps to, and you continue with your dressing as though nothing had happened. But you both know, that this is only the first time. 

 

“Your improvement is noteworthy.” Phasma states coolly as she slugs you in the guts once again.

Sometimes it’s hard to not get distracted by her looks, so powerful and stoic with long angular lines, sharp cheekbones and strikingly white hair. But there is a hidden warmth, you think to yourself sometimes that maybe she could have been a mother, maybe at one time she was one. At the very least you find her terribly easy to trust, easy trust melts into quiet friendship quickly in your isolation. 

“That means a lot coming from you, Captain.” You smile despite yourself, it feels awfully good to just grit your teeth and hit something, your domestic life can be so frustrating and combat training provides the perfect out for all of that pent up energy. 

“Just Phasma when we are alone, Aelin.” She drops her hands from their readied stance and begins to rolls out her shoulders and neck, a casual practiced motion her body as seen thousands of times before, no doubt. “I think of your as an ally more each day.” She looks at you, bruised and wild but lucid and standing with pride. She’s made you what you are and it’s really beginning to show through. Your heart swells with pride, despite the hard training, you are better equipped to defend yourself. 

The door of the training room opens and a stormtrooper enters, quickly saluting Phasma and yourself, word of your power and rank has spread easily throughout the ship, along with the rumors of your relationship to the higher-ups of the First Order. 

“Kylo Ren demands your presence in his quarters urgently ma'am.” He salutes again, and Phasma gives you quite a look, but nevertheless you follow him out and wind your way through the corridors- heart hammering. You can feel him checking on your and your whereabouts, just as anxious but there's something new there, dark and warm that leaves little dots of light behind your eyes. 

He’s waiting for you when you enter, divested of his helmet. Eyes blown wide and slick mouth slightly parted he strides towards you, closing the space between you quicker than your smaller legs could. You expect demanding lips on yours in the bright lights of the common room but they don’t come. You’re looking into each other, he down into you and you up into him as though you can see through each other and into another dimension altogether. His hands are gentle but firm on the tops of your shoulders, this time you sink to your knees obligingly. 

“Yes master.” You breathe against his hip bone as one of his skilled hands wraps your pony-tailed hair around its fist, the other coming to rest on side of your face. He sighs deeply as your hands work up and down his thighs slowly, teasing him just enough to remind him that he is not in complete control. Carefully you push his robs aside and work at unfastening the drawstring of his trousers and pull them enough out of the way so that you can continue to kiss and lick and lightly bite everything that is not his hard, impatiently waiting dick. 

He groans and shifts his weight in a not-too-subtle way as your hot breath ghosts over the shaft, pushing you to kiss the base before you run the flat of your tongue up the underside, eliciting a satisfying gasp above you. The hand in your hair tightens as you place soft, open-mouthed kisses on the tip and then take as much as you can into your mouth, sucking gently as you go. 

It’s then that you give up any kind of control you had. 

His hands hold your head still as he rocks in and out of your mouth, and all you can do is breathe through your nose and hang on for the ride. He’s breathing harder now, groaning occasionally when you find the time to flick and swirl your eager tongue. It’s not long before his groans crescendo to a shout as he empties himself down your throat, bitter and thick, you swallow around him until he releases your hair. Tiredly you sit back on your haunches to catch your breath as he rights himself. Used and satisfied, quite the pair you make. 

He sighs again as he pushes some now stray hair from your face, you look up at him and see only a young man, lonely maybe, too serious for his own good, but young. You see him in a way that not many people ever do. The rough callous of his thumb wipes a drop of cum from the corner of your mouth, unceremoniously you follow, wiping your mouth more thoroughly with the back of your forearm. The back of your throat still tastes distinctly like him. 

“Where’s the library?” You ask, point blank, non-avoidable. Surprise is key, you've discovered. 

“What?!” His, incredulous, sex-addled brain responds.

“I’m bored, I want to know more about the Sith’s and the Force and you either won’t tell me about either or are too busy too.” Aware that you sound like a petulant child you continue, hoping to wear him down. 

“You want,” A long pause hangs between you, his brow furrows. “Reading material?” He’s looking for the catch, the gotcha. There isn’t one. 

“The sith manifesto, anything. My mind is starved for more information to devour.” To emphasize your point you manifest a thick, strong wall of the Force and wrap it around the two of you entirely, buzzing and crackling with energy ready to be used. Eager. He seems to think a little more seriously. 

“I will consider the notion. I have a meeting with the Supreme Leader about your progress soon, I do not think it will do any harm to your progression.” He pushes the thick, glossy hair back from his forehead and strides over to one of the easy chairs casually. “You may return to your duties now Aelin.” 

And so you do, your knees ache slightly when you stand and have to catch your balance, but you do and you exit the chambers swiftly-businesslike. You pretend that the dampness between your thighs has nothing to do with Kylo Ren.


	18. Ghosts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter is so short, I've been trying to work through some serious writers block while juggling everything else in my life. Hopefully more of this will be available in the future!
> 
> PSA: CHANGES HAVE BEEN MADE TO THIS CHAPTER AS OF 7/9/16

“It is beyond me why he keeps you around still when you’d lost your usefulness after our first meeting, in the interrogation chamber.” Hux’s light eyes flicked up from his work and bore into yours from across the great desk, a literal border between the lives you lead. 

“I feel the same way, at times.” Strangely, you admit. 

“Your prowess as a bedmate cannot be that to keep you here to inconvenience me in your off hours.” He keeps his face neutral while his words wind around your dwindling patience like smoke, his face is like he’s playing a particularly challenging game of holo-chess. You hate him for baiting you. You hate him for the blush creeping up into your cheeks.

“For once, I think we do agree, General.” You keep your voice carefully cool, this too is a test. But your hands still bunch into fists despite yourself. 

The timer on your com unit beeps softly, relieving you of your secretarial duties. It’s a pleasure to remove yourself. 

 

“Do it again.” You’re trying, you really are. But it’s just not happening the way you want it to. You can feel the eager energy within you and the Force around you but somewhere in between it’s not working out. You grit your teeth at the dull ache in your head and try again. 

“I’m trying.” You say through your teeth, eyes squeezed shut as you work to float the TIE Fighter, it shifts slightly and one side comes up off the hangar floor- but that’s as far as you’ve gotten. You drop your hands and let your shoulders hunch forward blissfully, your body aches with all of the energy you’re forcing through it like a shorted out wire. 

“Stop trying and just do it.” Kylo’s getting impatient with you, well more so than usual. You want to turn to him to unleash your anger, or maybe launch the TIE Fighter at him instead. The thought gives you a vindictive pleasure, but you resist these urges. 

“If that’s what it takes to get you to do something so simple, I could do it when I was seven, then by all means.” The voice modulator does nothing to hide his cruelty. ‘That’s it’ you think to yourself, you are done resisting the urge to smash his face in. 

“Don’t tempt me, Ren.” You sneer and push again, channeling all of the hate you bear into a single action, reducing you to only one feeling and purpose. Your vision goes red and you feel yourself rooted to the floor so hard you swear the surrounding moons start to revolve around your gravity instead. Stutteringly the TIE Fighter comes off the hangar floor, it hangs serenely in the empty air for one, maybe two seconds before you fling it as hard as you can at your mentor. 

It’s really a shame that as the last second he Force-pushes it off to one side, the crash isn’t particularly impressive and Hux will probably make you do a lot of paperwork as punishment. But oh Creator was that satisfying. 

 

It’s ironic, that the moment in which she looks the most beautiful is when she is flinging a TIE Fighter at you. A close second was the way she looked writhing under you in your dark sheeted bed like a pale moon on the night sky. You live only because your instincts push it away from harming you, but the way her curls stand in wild glory on her head, framing her delicate features threatens to steal your breath more than the abyss of death. 

Chest heaving and rubbing at a sore spot on her head, she doesn’t ask for your permission before stomping out heavily. She doesn’t understand the hold she has on your life itself. In a gesture of goodwill you had your personal copy of the Sith Manifesto, given to you by Snoke, put in her chambers, but the way she is advancing it’s almost time to give her one of her own. 

Stormtroopers are gathering around now to see about the crash, they salute as you make your way out, probably assuming that it was you rather than your student.  _ Come to us Kylo Ren. _ You stop dead in your tracks about halfway back to your office, Snoke needs you. 

 

The little red book with bent corners and tattered pages is sitting on your bed when you return to your chambers, the black insignia on the cover shining in the dim light and for the first time, giving you hope. You dampen your floating feelings, some people don’t need to be aware of this. Carefully, so carefully you rip up the front casing slightly so that you can write secretly within it. It is an old forgotten book obviously, no one will notice the slight damage. From the common room you get yourself a cup of very dark caf, and a toothpick. It’s time for you to plan what to transmute, time will be of the essence, and you can type by dictation much faster than you can come up with on the fly. 

Preferable, no. But it’s not going to get much better until you can figure out how to make contact. 

You make sure once again that you’re alone and not being remotely observed, and start to write your death sentence, should you be found out. 

For the entire time that you write, you are not disturbed.

 

_ B’Klea, I’m alive, I was taken by the First Order and have been trained in the ways of the Force. I am to become some great weapon, keep yourself safe from them and me. Do not worry for me, do not mourn me. I love you deeply, look after mother and father. Never return to Jakku. Promise me you will not forget your sister. Promise that you will remember me.  _

 

You shake as you write in messy, out of practice but native handed Oraevun. It’s too short and not enough but you have nothing more you can say. You no longer fear for your own life, what more can they take or kill that you aren’t ready to give? Surrender is not a luxury provided by the First Order. You belong to them and might as well build some semblance, some tiny thing that could be considered your own, even if it is tainted by them. No more tears fall for you, your family, or your motherland. You have shed enough tears for what you’ve lost, no more should fall. It would be a waste. They don’t even know they’ve been lost to you, you ponder the thought that maybe they don’t even know you’re gone. Maybe they think you ran out of credits to call come with at the pay-holo in the cantina, maybe they think the body-thieves got you and you’ve been sold for parts. Maybe it would be better to let them think that than to tell them the truth. 

You wonder if they’re going to be disappointed to find that the sister, daughter, who used to make music on a wasteland planet is now the First Order’s greatest weapon. Would they hate her for helping the First Order, even if it means learning about and pursuing a power she didn’t know she had?

But these are all just idle thoughts. 


	19. Dreamscape

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry it's been so long, my personal life has been absolutely nuts. I will try to post more regularly and finish out this story in the best way I can before I start on a new one. Thank again for reading and I hope you enjoy!

“Come forward Kylo Ren.” Your heart beat heavily inside your chest as you strode efficiently before the hologram seated on the giant throne. “Report to me her progress.” He spoke slowly, terrible mouth forming carefully around each hollow sound.

You kneel before you speak. 

“Her mental abilities far outweigh her physical prowess. She is small yet fierce, more controlled than she once was, and no longer seeks to subvert my authority or General Hux’s.” It is hard to stop more words from spilling forth in her favor, but your secret must remain just that, clandestine. You strain with the effort. 

Snoke looks vaguely interested, “A glittering review from such a normally displeased teacher.” He seems to consider this notion for a long while, head rocking back and forth slowly once. Finally he speaks. You know down in your soul that you are found out. Snoke effortlessly passes in and out of your mind like sand through fingers, no amount of effort can stop it. 

“You hold deep affections for this girl, this distracts you from the Path, from all of the effort I have put into your training, discrediting how far you have come since you submitted to me.” He begins, gesturing slowly with one pointed and gnarled grey hand. “Indeed, if you do not fail once again, she will bring you an Empire to rival those of the past, but proceed cautiously in this Kylo Ren.” You look up into the dark expanse of your masters empty eyes. 

“I am dedicated as always to your cause Master, the girl means nothing to me just as my father does.” The words bit like acid in your throat, but some lies are necessary. You know where your allegiance lies, and so does Snoke. It is what he wants to hear, you think to yourself. 

“False!” Snoke exclaims and leans down as though you were an ant, voice bouncing violently off the walls of the chamber. The Force crackles around you in agitation, in warning. It speaks to you,  _ there is danger here _ . “You will capitalize on your petty affection for the girl. You will rise to power and grant me an heir by her. By blood of two powerful knights your child will be as no other man has been before.” He pauses, your tongue feels stuck to the roof of your mouth, too big for the space and making it hard to get enough air into your lungs. “But first you must be rid of the Jedi pestilence and Rebel disease.” Your fingertips tingle and excitement hammers in your chest. An empire at your fingertips, an heir, a warrior empress to stand at your side. You flush heavily at far fetched dreams,.thank the Creater for the mask covering your childlike reaction.  

You stand to speak, bowing at the waist in formality, but the words that fall across your chapped and nervous bitten lips swell first in your heart. “It is an honor to serve you Supreme Leader, may your great vision guide my way into the darkness.”

The hologram starts to undulate as disconnection begins, but not before Snoke’s croaking voice slips through once more, “We will usher in a new era of order, Kylo Ren.” 

Then, once more, Kylo Ren was left alone in the darkness. 

 

Kylo has been in the chamber with Snoke for a some time when the idea strikes you, it's a crazy idea, granted, but it’s something. You chastise yourself for carelessness as you pace around the common room with the deadly little book in hand. You want to weigh your options, look at every facet of the situation, but you can’t help but feel like you don’t have anything to lose. 

Except that you do. 

Because as much as you would like to make this a suicide mission and end your stupid, frustrating, infuriating, suffering at the hands of a monster there’s nothing to say that if you’re found out they won’t kill your family before your eyes. There’s nothing to say they won’t hold your face to the glass as they destroy your home planet and innocent lives. 

Homesick thoughts usually keep you awake late into the night cycle, but sleep and sorrow grab hold of you tightly, weighing you down like lead. Slumping into one of the large reading chairs feels like a full body sigh, the book resting in your lap like a paper weight in a dust storm. 

You don’t remember drifting off, but oh it is sweet to be free of your reality for even a little while. 

 

His broad hands wrapped in warm black leather wrapped tightly around your upper arms, looking down into you as though you hold all of the answers to the questions he’s asked his whole life long if he could only figure out how to ask them. You think to yourself that he looks so young, in moments like this, where the troubles that hang around his neck like a noose are lifted. 

The evening light was grey as dusty glass peppered by tiny specks of starlight, bare trees like gnarled hands against the dusky sky. Sky. Something more than the dense vastness of space. But not unlike space he folds you gently into the black robes that cover his broad chest while his hands find purchase in your hair and back alike, the swaddling fabric of his robes is softer than you thought it would be, it smells like him, warm and softly spiced and Kylo. A rumble from above you stirs you from your musings. 

“Sometimes I miss seeing the stars from on the ground, it changes the whole perspective of skygazing.” His own musings said aloud, the cadence-like rumble that starts above you and resonates deep in the chest your ear is pressed against. Faintly you can hear his hard heart beating. 

“The night sky is only a graveyard of stars, long dead to us. Their lights flickered out long ago, but the light still travels all the way here to let us know they lived.” You murmur into his chest, not really caring if he hears or not. It hurts your soul to repeat the things your father used to say. He doesn’t really respond so much as he sighs heavily and feel him relax a little more against you, melting into you just a little more, you swear you could reach into him with how close you are. 

“You’re cold inside, and there's a storm tearing everything apart. You’ve hollowed out your soldiers bodies so they’re just as empty as you.” You say without looking at him, still. “You draw blood just to taste it on your spiteful lips, hold bones in your rough hands just to break them.” He backs away slowly to see you better, slick mouth slightly parted. 

“Holding you close washes my soul clean of those things.” His sleepy brown eyes drift closed as he leans down to kiss where your hairline meets your forehead. 

“Holding all the purity in the world won’t wash the blood from your hands Kylo.” You sigh against the warm lips on your face, close to where pressure builds as he rips through your mind in training, now tender. 

There was movement in the corner of your eye, small but regular enough to not be a bug. Both of you turn your head towards it. 

You recognize that woman, even from a distance. 

The face of the rebellion. That woman, with the regal shoulder line and well-aged face is General Organa. You’ve seen all the wanted posters, all the propaganda holos. Her light grey robes catch the dying light and mirror the sky above. Her eyes sparkle the same way Kylo’s do. She’s walking towards you, his hands tighten around you. You think she looks like a queen. 

“Ben,” Something so simple, a short sound, rounded mouth and pulled corners. But the shortest, smallest sounds are often the most profound in the way they decorate silence. This much is true. “My only son, come home to me.” She has this heartbreakingly earnest expression on her graceful face, you freeze carefully in his arms- son. Only son. 

“That name is not me, that  _ boy _ is dead.” Finally he speaks.

“That is the name I gave my son, and he stands before me, proud like his father.” The General does not so much as look at you, her eyes are locked on Kyl-Bens? 

“I killed him, and I will kill you as I did my father if you do not leave this instant.” You can tell he wants to mean it, he really does. But he doesn’t, and you know he can’t change that. 

“My only mistake was not holding you close when I had the chance. There is light in you still Ben, I know it. I will never let that belief go.” She’s gripping her hands together like she’s praying and begging at the same time. Maybe she is. 

“Then you are even more foolish than I thought.” He countered, finally releasing you from his heavy grip and walking towards the much shorter, slightly rounder woman that you now see the filial resemblance in. She does not look afraid. 

“If I am going to die it would be fitting that it be by the hands I created out of love.” You admire her fearlessness, her single-minded want. A rare quality to posses.  

“These hands do not know love.” You knew that was a lie, they know the curves of your body like a map to the stars, but the way his hands look wrapped around his lightsaber is not loving. You hate the scream of ignition, the high and angry whine of ventilation ports. You hate the way your mouth cannot move and you’re held down so hard your hands do not shake. You hate the way her body sounds when it hits the soft living ground. 

You hate the way your screams wake you in a cold sweat once again. 

But mostly you hate him. 

You hate him so much more.   


	20. Fate

You lay awake in your cold bed that night after the dream, rest refused to come with your mind so busy. Sometime in the early hours of the morning you heard him stir in the common room, the floor was cold on your bare feet but your steps were silent as night until your door slid open, alerting him at last to your presence. He didn’t seem surprised or startled. 

He was dressed and putting on his boots, his lightsaber hung casually where it always does, but he was wearing more body armor than usual. It shined like oil in the soft light, his dark hair not dissimilar. 

“The Knights of Ren have been called on a mission. Training will resume when I return.” He spoke first, curt, businesslike. Maybe it was naive of you to think that he would be so affected by the dream, maybe he didn’t remember it at all. 

“I am trained, let me come with you.” Your words don’t match your appearance or your abilities, you know you have a long way to go before you’re ready for a mission. You want him to think you’re eager to serve, but in reality you just want to go back to sleep. Your knotted hair and pillow marked face back up the former more. The moment you are no longer useful you are dead. This is your reality. 

He talks as he moves about the room, doing this and that, double checking things. 

“You would get in the way. Stay here, Hux is in charge. Consider the nature of darkness while I am gone, train with Phasma in the mornings still.” He speaks to you as though you are a child, something small and insignificant and not what is supposed to bring him greatness or destiny or whatever it was. He put on his dark helmet finally and stood before you, seemingly larger than usual. A mountain of a person. He paused there for a moment, looking at you strangely before turning sharply on his heel to leave. 

But he paused at the open door when you spoke. 

“Stay safe.” The words slip out of your sleep-addled mouth and you don’t want to think about what would happen if you were left to Hux permanently. And that’s the only way you feel about him leaving, this was always about saving yourself. Always.

He gave another tiny nod, almost imperceptible, but still there before he left, robes billowing and all. You shook your head at the ridiculous and powerful and volatile man, yet a terrible uneasiness settled in the pit of your stomach and made you think that you wouldn’t be sleeping terribly well for the next few days he was gone. 

 

You know now, that Hell is not a place, it is a way of life. 

Your position has been elevated, or that’s what you were told. No longer the poor replacement to a secretarial droid, no, you’ve been given a plain Ensign’s uniform. You would enjoy the weight of the belted holster against your side, except that you are still not permitted to have access to any weapons. The belt is part of your uniform, blaster or not. You pretend to not notice the other officers on the Bridge snickering about it. Instead of being belittled and humiliated by General Hux in his private office you now have that very same,  _ distinct  _ pleasure in the public eye. 

“Accelerate the scheduled departure from launch bay 5 by three hours.” The command comes through clearly from Hux where he stands in the center of the room, voice carrying in the cold atmosphere of the Bridge. 

“Sir the atmosphere of the arrival planet will be too dense for the heat shields of that prisoner transport craft, the departure should be delayed to account for-” your voice trailed off into nothingness when you noticed that not only was every in the room looking at you with wide eyes, but Hux was doing his best to shoot lasers out of his own. Suddenly the high neck off your collar seemed more oppressive than usual. You swallowed hard, “unless that is a gamble you are willing to take, sir. _ ”  _ you finished more quietly than before. His glare sent ice through your veins. 

“Gentlemen, leave immediately.” His voice was low, cold. The other officers scurried out of sight, some of them whispering lowly. You wished you could follow. You watched his lean body stride slowly but precisely over to the large windows where he faced away from you. He spoke first. 

“Ren is not here to protect you from your own stupidity.” He spat the words at you like they tasted badly. 

“Sir, that departure is a suicide mission.” You could probably take Hux in a fight if you really needed to, he didn’t seem terribly aggressive physically, you would only need to buy yourself enough time to get away…

The sound of his raised voice shocked you out of your tempest of swirling thoughts. 

“Prideful girl, bow to the First Order!” His face is red and strained and he’s baring his teeth like some wild animal, you recoil as he shouts venom at you, and hold your holopad defensively as he strides back towards you. “I should have you burned with them.” 

“Good, I’ve wanted to die since I met you.” You spit as you locked eyes with the tall flame-haired man, your voice and your gaze steady, he’s backed you up so far his hands bracket your hips where they lean against a control panel. You both know your words are only half true. If he could see into your mind there would only be the highlight reel of your time on the table that set you aflame, at his hands no less. 

“Is that really a gamble you’re willing to take? You’re relying on the goodwill of a  _ very _ bad man.” He’s baiting you, he wants to take this argument in circles so he can find a way to turn it on you and have you killed for it. This man, this monster, is bloodthirsty and patient as evil itself.

Two slow, measured breaths come before you speak again, this is either suicide by Hux or the chance you’ve been waiting for. 

“I have something you want, and you have something I want. Do the math, sir.” You leaned back slightly and tilted your chin up like his breath smelled and you didn’t have anything to lose. Too bad both of those are untrue. It feels like someone has sucked all of the air out of the room and you’re threatening each other in the vacuum of space. 

“Don’t waste my time girl, you have exactly half a minute to explain why I shouldn’t kill you right now for high treason and bribery of an official.” He steps back finally, air returns properly to your lungs and you lower the holopad. Your pulse hammers in your ears but you have to hold it together, worst case scenario you get the death you half wished for. 

“You’ve heard Snoke’s prophecy, no doubt, I am to be a Sith weapon that brings Kylo Ren an empire to end all empires. But what if you could do something for me that changes those plans? What if I could promise you something you can’t refuse? Hero’s may be remembered but legends are immortal, General.” You pause just long enough for him to open his mouth to refuse you or respond in some rude way, before you harden your gaze and cast a heavy gravity over the both of you, anchoring you both to the spots you stand it like a star the rest of the system orbits. Hazel eyes dive into his piercing blue, your souls seeing each other in a trapped moment before you deliver the words that you feel sink into his gut like one of Phasma’s punches. 

But you see something in him, in his mind. A brutal depiction of hard steel and ice and snow and black rock beneath his boots. A weapon like there has never been before, the sorrow of billions and the undoing of not only a place but a time. There will be so much lost. There is a pride and a sadness and bitter, obscuring  _ revenge _ to be had here, wherever this awful place may be. A power deep beneath the ground that has been tapped and handed to this man on a silver platter that was hammered into beauty by the hands of slaves. A death that has been earned by years of manipulation and sacrifice and prowess. One word settles like sediment within your mind:  _ Starkiller _ . 

And suddenly you feel that the center of this man's attention is a very dangerous place to be. 

“You don’t need a weapon, when you are born one, General Hux.” He narrowed his eyes and clenched his fists at his sides.

“Do not challenge me.” He seethed. You can see the image of his blaster being pulled from the holster, but he makes no real moves towards it. It’s just a passing thought, he knows you won’t kill him. 

“It’s your choice,” You dared to look away, as an attempt at levity. “you can continue with your useless life,” Your gaze makes him uncomfortable, unsettles him in his cool demeanor and unwavering dignity, he thinks you look at him as though he in the one in a cage and not in fact, the captor. An amusing observation that pulls your dry lips into a surely, wicked smile. 

“Do we have a deal...Emperor Hux.” You speak carefully, slowly, sending each little sound directly from your lips to the part of him that needs to hear it the most. 

He looks away, and a pause hangs between you for much longer than you would have liked. 

“What are your terms.” You both exhaled slightly, tension falling from both of your shoulders like stones.

“I’m going to commit treason this night cycle, alarms are going to go off, people are going to be alerted, turn a blind eye and shut down the commotion and let me do what I need to do, I will not be leaving the ship. Do not, under any circumstances, tell my master.” He started to speak again, but you’re getting good at interrupting people who want to kill you. “And I need Ren’s holo-login information.” 

“Very well, here are my terms: There is an event soon, and you will be my  _ personal _ escort.” He spoke casually as he strode over to the viewports again, but the simplicity of his request and the casualty of his tone made a knot in your stomach, you do not trust this deal or this man but he’s your only chance. “Ren’s information will be forwarded to you via comm unit in a file that will self-destruct one minute after arrival.” He turned around to face you once more, “Now leave.” and for once, you follow your damn orders. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, I appreciate it more than you know.


	21. Contact

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one of my favorite scenes so far, is it yours? thanks for reading!

You aren’t surprised when the login information Hux gives you works, but you do realize, fiendishly delighted,  that you now have unrestricted access to Kylo Ren’s personal holopad. 

_ Focus.  _ _ Now is not the time.  _

Your hands won’t stop shaking so you set the flat holopad on the table in the common room and sit on the wide couch. You enter the coordinates carefully. 

The hologram was grainy and lagged at best, but was unmistakably was your sister. With her round freckled face, and white unseeing eyes. Her hair is still lightly sun streaked. She looks well. It hurts in a way you never want to end. She’s alive and safe and far away from the danger you would bring with you. 

“B’klea.” You breathe a giant sigh of relief around her name. 

_ “Dilectus soror”  _ Your native tongue sounded dreadfully foreign on her lips, those lips you had watched curl into a knowing smile so many times before.  _ callidus puella.  _ Seeing her makes your heart ache terribly for the memories destroyed and the time you’ll never be able to have again. You know you should have treasured her more when you could have. 

She spoke again, in Basic this time though heavily accented, vowels stretched and cut like an unflattering dress around her plump lips. 

“What has happened to you Aelin? You are not on Jakku as you were, did not respond to my letter.” wrinkles of worry crease her tanned brow, you wonder idly what you look like now, surely not the same. At least she cannot see the worry on your face. 

“I was taken by the First Order, I don’t know how long ago, maybe a few months.” You want to reach through the transmission and touch her, to let her know that you’re okay, you ache for your home, for your motherland. Looking at her makes your chest pull tightly. 

“How is it that you are not dead? How is it that you are speaking to me now?” Had your positions been reversed you first question would have been about an escape plan, B’Klea was always more pragmatic. There is no escape from the  _ Finalizer.  _ You know that now. 

_ “Ego amissum timor meus de casus” _ You sigh into the resigned words, true though bitter. A fable from far away and many years ago that once fell from your mother’s lips, the sacred last words of the Oraevun-born.  _ I have lost my fear of falling. _ You long for the cliffs and crags and mountains of your home, the earthquakes and falling stones and the beautiful fossilized life within. Anything but the cold metal prison that is your keeper now. Even if it was twice as deadly. 

“That is a dangerous way to speak my sister, you should know better. It takes greater strength of spirit to suffer than to die.” Her usually serene face broke from its calm into unguarded worry, you want to hide your face in your hands but every moment of seeing her is more valuable. Your humiliation is evident to her. She does not mention it further, she knows the shame you bear. She could always read you. 

You’ve embraced the Force and all that comes with the darkness, much more than you ever thought you would. You tell yourself the shame, the perverse joy, the manipulation, the power you have come to know, that it was for survival, but you and everyone else know that there’s more to it than that. 

“What am I going to do.” It wasn’t a question so much as an afterthought. You know what is going to happen to you, what your destiny here is. You are a weapon, a warship and nothing more. You aren’t even a threat. You’re too invested in your own growth in the Force to leave now, too selfish to die the girl you were when they took you. 

“Do without I do suppose.” Came her resigned reply, knowing each other is alive to suffer does nothing for personal comfort. She licks her forever chapped lips uneasily before she speaks again, shaking her head erratically once or twice. 

“Aelin,” she pauses pregnantly, “I have received my draft notice from the First Order, my mandatory service is to begin soon.”  

“ _ No _ ,” You feel the panic rising in you, the air is thick with anxiety. “No B’klea it cannot be! It’s not possible! Sister you are  _ blind _ ” You feel the force flow through your fist as it connects with the table, denting it slightly. The burn in your joints is easy enough to ignore. She holds her silence, weeping quietly with her face turned directly into the camera. Your sobs heave within your chest, breaths too big for your tiny, insignificant body. The air around you feels heavy with your shared sorrow. 

“Father failed to destroy our documentation and has been taken into custody on other charges. They promised to restore my vision if I would serve in father’s place in the Imperial infantry. But I know he is dead, they won’t tell me but I can feel it, Aelin. They killed him. ” You weep fully and openly now, vision blurred with the slick brine of of a broken heart. Father, Raq, glasses that always slipped down his angular nose and salt and pepper hair, wide rough palms from stonelaying. Another life snuffed out. And your sister, small but agile with hair light as the dry grass. Her studies all for naught if she too is sacrificed to the war machine that is the First Order. Another star dead. Those drafted into the Service after the occupation are put on the front lines. This is not a draft, it is an execution. 

“My death is nothing to fear Aelin. Yes, it will cause pain, but like a favorite toy packed away; look at your memories of me with fondness and acknowledge that together we have learned something.” You hate how reserved she is, you hate how calm she is. It’s everything you can do to not absolutely explode, the joints in your hands pop in protest to the way your fists are clenched mercilessly. You breathe in heaving gasps around your tears, your chest aching deeply as though someone has driven a pike straight through your heart. 

“B’klea,” You sob around your angry words, “I have to believe that there is reason why I met the person who ruined my life, the Force is mysterious but I  _ will _ find a way to save you.” You hold up a shaking hand to the holo as if to wipe away B’klea’s tears, but your fingers pass through her high cheekbone and back through thin air as if she never existed at all. 

_ “Usque in aeternum semper, liberabo te. _ ” You harden yourself by your words, a promise and a vow. Silent tears still streamed steadily down your face, you tried to paw them roughly away but they just kept falling. If this is what strength of spirit feels like you would rather die a weakling. 

“Examine your heart sister, you are more clever than you think. Surely you must know, deep down.” Her voice wobbled around the words but she still got them out. Her soft voice wobbled around the words. 

“What are you saying B’klea?” Your heart begins to race once again and you can’t shake a sense of foreboding that settles around you. The Force crackles uneasily in the common room. You and your sister used to be like twins, sharing of mind and always able to tell what the other was thinking, but she seems more like a stranger now, far away and unreachable as a shooting star in the sky. 

“May the Force bless and keep you Aelin.” She turned her head away suddenly in a shock, following a startling sound. She turned back towards you with an achingly apologetic look on her smooth face that pulled at your heart like a moon to a helpless ocean. 

She ended the call first. It was a sudden close, it did not fizzle out like alka-tablets in sweet tasting drinks, like the ones you had when you were sick. This was the darkness swallowing the light whole. And so I was left alone in the darkness, and so the darkness I became. Completely, resolutely, swift as death and twice as mean. 

Sometimes, memories are the worst form of torture. 


	22. Return

You’re grateful for the passing glance and nod of understanding from General Hux on the Bridge the morning after, but the idea of being beholden to such a wicked man sets your nerves on edge. He owns you now for what you did, what he helped you do, and if you don’t make good on your half of the bargain he’ll have you killed for it, surely.  _ It was worth it  _ you tell yourself, hoping against all hope that it is. 

 

Your master seemed startled where he stood frozen in the doorway, to find you wrapped only in a dark towel. But then again it's difficult to tell with the mask on. Dark, wet hair stuck to your shoulders and neck and drinking caf sleepily in the early morning, he returned to the  _ Finalizer _ . He returned to you. 

“How did you sleep?” the idle pleasantry sounds funny through the very ominous voice modulator, were you in a better mood you might have let a chuckle slip through. Your feeble mind was still trying to wrap itself around the events of last night, and failing miserably. It didn’t help that you now had to concentrate on keeping your master out of those memories, a stabbing pain in your temple makes itself known. You take another sip of caf and grimace.  

“I think you know the answer to that.” He seemed a little hurt by your cutting response. “You don’t know what a joke is, Ren.” You sighed.

“Yes I do, I’m looking at one.” 

You abandon bristling indignation and watch as he sets down his lightsaber and carefully removes his gloves, folding them over the other and setting them neatly beside his weapon, different from his usual routine of throwing things down and waiting for you or one of the droids to put them back in their proper place. You notice that his knuckles are bruised and somewhat bloodied underneath the protective leather.

“I’ll get the med kit.” It came out a little harsher than you wanted it to, but the slump in his shoulders makes your brows furrow with worry. You dressed in black pants and a loose shirt quickly, not bothering with anything more and stepped into the ‘fresher to grab the small metal box from under the sink. It thumped softly against the low table as you set it down in front of the couch your shared with your master. He flinched back slightly the first time your cool fingertips wrapped around the warmth of his left hand, addressing it first. You pretended not to notice. 

_ What happened? _ You probed carefully towards him.

_ That’s classified.  _ He clearly wasn’t going to give anymore, you let it drop. 

“Why are you bleeding?” You spoke aloud as your hands work deftly to first clean the wounds before you treat and wrap them, you tell yourself that you didn’t really want to hold conversation with him, that you just wanted something to fill the silence. Even you have to admit that this is probably not the most intelligent thing you could have offered up. 

“Stupidity.” He shot back. You exhaled heavily as you worked on a particularly stubborn spot of blood stained skin, unsure if it was truly his rather than someone else's.

“I wasn’t aware that could cause spontaneous hand bleeding, must be a new phenomena.” You looked up from your careful work and into the eye slits on his mask, certain that if you could see his face that he would have at least cracked a smile. Gently you released the now cleaned hand, which flopped uselessly back into his lap, to reach for the small release buttons on the underside of his jaw so that you could talk to the man and not the symbol. 

He stiffened once he realized your intentions. 

“If you move a single centimeter closer to me I will tear you apart.” 

You roll your eyes at him as your deft little fingers find the buttons, the release seems especially loud in the tense quiet of the room. He’s too tired to fight you...for now. Slowly you lift the dastardly thing off his pale, aristocratic face and void-black waves of hair. You place it heavily on the table with the medicine. Hands going back to work, to smooth bacta across the open wounds and then wrapping them securely in bandage so he can’t pick them open again. He probably will anyway. 

“You’re a psychopath.”

“I prefer commanding.” He spoke softly, somewhat exposed, naked even, now without the mask to make him seem like more than he is. You work in silence for some time, allowing yourself to properly think of a response that won’t upset him more.

“You know, that’s not what an apology sounds like.” You say firmly, as one would chastise a small child who doesn’t know better. You pretend to not notice the way he subtly winces as you clean around his wounds, some deeper than others. It would hurt his fragile pride.

He doesn’t speak again until you’re almost done wrapping his hand in soft white bandage.

“Thank you…” He seemed to wonder what he was thanking you for, before finishing, “For doing this, for me.” Out of the corner of your eye you watch as he flexes his hands around the bandages as you put away the extra bandage and close the box once more. 

“You know, thanking me for an act of basic human decency says a lot about your quality of life.” You yawn widely at the end.

“The quality of my life is not the problem, I find it difficult to have much of a heart when I have stopped so many before.” He didn’t look at you as he spoke softly, favoring the view of his battle scarred helmet sitting next to the medicine box instead. A queer analogy by coincidence. 

“How many men do you need to destroy before you can forgive yourself, for all the things you could never become, master?” You lean back against the plush couch heavily, letting your eyes drift closed and the muscles in your face relax, perhaps against your better judgement. He’s rarely this pliable. 

“Your existence is giving me a headache, leave.” 

“You know I wish I could.” You don’t bother opening your eyes when you speak, internally chuckling at the way your words spark little bits of anger in him. It’s too easy to get under his skin. 

“Freedom is a burden. You should be grateful I took it away from you.” You hear him shift next to you, but also sense that he’s starting to relax within your proximity as well. You turn to look sleepily at him before you speak, head lolling to the side as you do.

“You’re clever Kylo Ren, the best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make her think that she’s not in prison at all.” 

He didn’t bother to respond. But sat there for a long time in the easy silence. There wasn’t any real venom in your words, they were just a statement of a simple fact. You took the time to study his profile, his regal jawline and deep set eyes, high chiseled cheekbones, the way his long hair draped across the top of his ear, his full lips and long throat. His robes were distressed from battle, torn and frayed in places, caked with blood in others. It makes you think that he must also look that way on the inside. He must have more battle wounds, but he hasn’t asked you to do any more. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, I really appreciate it!


	23. Oath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!

“You’re distracted.” Her words are punctuated by the sound her solid fist makes when it slams into your rib cage, pushing the air out of your lungs with a grunt. 

“Sorry” You look up at her from your wounded crouch witheringly. Your formerly white hand wraps have become dingy and stained and your hair has grown long, even when tied up at the crown of your head it reaches past your shoulder blades. Your body has become harder and leaner than it was before your training, a reflection of the effort you’ve put towards developing strength in every sense of the word.  

“Normally I would tell my men to push thoughts away, but you are as always, a special case..” She crosses her arms easily across her chest and a crooked smirk plays on her hard features. Her stance is enviously easy, taking up space in a way that seems entirely justified. Unlike the way you always feel like a child walking in fathers shoes. 

“My is head wherever I can pray for an easier life. I think I’m homesick but without a home to go back to.” You rub anxiously at the back of your upper arm, squeezing your eyes shut against the harsh white lights that shine down on both of you like search beacons. While it shines off her snow white hair and chisels her cheekbones, it only adds shadow to your tired eyes. 

“Never pray for an easy life Aelin, pray to be a stronger woman! You should be grateful to the Order for giving you all it has!” Your eyes fly open at the startling volume of her sharp voice. Phasma was only trying to be encouraging, but the fervor in her voice and fire in her eyes makes your heart race, and not in a good way. “I was taken once, too.” She says a little more quietly when she sees your rather cowardly reaction, your eyes move up to hers, stony ice blue suddenly softer than you’ve ever seen them before. 

“What?” You lean towards her with wide eyes and open ears, straining to grasp every detail in utter disbelief. Lazily you’ve let yourself think of Phasma as one and the same as the  _ Finalizer _ ,  such that without her a vital piece would be missing and the whole thing would come crashing down on itself. In a way you’re right, but maybe it’s not so simple. Maybe it’s harsh to toss your only ally in with the system that stole you away. 

“I was young, Slavers attacked the transport I was on,” her expression grows pensive and dark at the sour memory. “I was absorbed into the Stormtrooper Institute, still only a staff sergeant.” You watch the microexpressions of confliction cross her face, every blink and twitch under your scrutiny. The wistful remembrance in her energy feedback tugs at your heart, you have to steal yourself against the pull of empathy. 

_ A sad memory is all, her sorrows are not yours _ . You chastise yourself mentally.

“How did you escape?” 

“By embracing my own power.” Phasma looks into you with her deep-set eyes, a silent grant of permission between the two of you.

It’s dreamlike, hazy on the edges and echo’s around your head. An approximation of a memory. Not nearly as clear as as the dreamscape connection you’ve shared with your master. 

_ It’s because she’s not a Force-user.  _ Kylo asserts in a particularly irritating and uninvited way, voice too loud and jarring against the softness of the shared memory.

_ Get out of my brain.  _ You shove back in his general direction petulantly. Thankfully he got the message. 

You can see the interior standard freighter, like the one you were shoved into unceremoniously back on Jakku, the blast makes your ears ring, you’re young, 18 or so, small and scared, there are people everywhere, tall creatures with ice-white skin are boarding the craft and shouting orders in a language you can’t understand. They look at you in a hungry way that makes you feel sick. 

The world tilts on it’s side as they bind your hands and shove you down onto the ground, head hitting hard and eyes watering, long light hair in your face. They’re talking about you, gesturing at your crumpled body on the dirty floor next to the other females. 

Time jumps forward in a giant  _ whoosh  _ that makes your stomach swoop uneasily.  _ It’s only a sad memory  _ you tell yourself once more, struggling to keep control, to keep the tenuous separation between you and her.

Your owner is a vile man, corpulent and always slick with slimy perspiration. His vile hands are not worthy of touching the temple of your lithe body, made strong by training at the boarding school your parents sent you to off-world. They never wanted a soldier. The call to protect those you love became stronger than your mother’s voice. You knew your brother was too weak for the institute,  _ let me go _ you said. Your mother cried. 

You’re running now, blaster in hand and you can only think one thing  _ gotta get to a ship gotta get to a ship _ . Legs tired and lungs burning, unfamiliar hallways winding and you watch as guards fall one after the other at hands that can’t really belong to you. Hands too blood stained to belong to you. This is not the impersonal way of ordered combat, this is far more personal than that.  

You know this feeling, this heavy wash of panic mixed with fire running through your veins, feeling as though you can fly and stand still as stone simultaneously. Final scenes of jumping on the back of a speeder and lifting off-world in a stolen transport play dimly in the back of your mind, overtaken by a memory of a conversation, no, a ceremony. 

_ For your valor and dedication to the First Order you are hereby promoted on the authority of myself and the High Council of Moffs, Command Sergeant Major Phasma. _ A young officer, a General, in a neat uniform presents you with a title, elevating your enlistment status effective immediately. From the depth of hell on a starving planet crawling with Slaver’s to the pride of the First Order’s enlisted. 

_ Thank you sir.  _ You can barely hear your own voice over the massive roar of clapping hands. The vision starts to fade into black, undulating slowly. You understand, there is an untapped power here among these men, waiting, you can take it all for your own. And no one can hurt you. You can’t be disowned or disobeyed, not taken or threatened or sold. Not ever again. The swell of pride and hope in your heart threatens to burst forth as tears, but you hold them back- it would be a shameful display. 

Your own eyes are watering when you come back to yourself. 

 

“Captain, you are needed in sector two. Dismissed.” You didn’t notice Kylo’s presence. 

“Sir.”

Phasma saluted him and quickly left, leaving you with your particularly difficult master. He’s taking his time, removing first his mask, and sets it down lightly on one of the long weapons tables on the edge of the training room. Supposedly you should feel honored that he removes the mask in your presence, mostly it’s just an unwelcome reminder that this monster is also a man. The thick leather gloves come off next, set neatly next to the helmet. He can feel you watching, bristling at the sight of his naked hands. Hands that have wrung blood from the fabric of life over and over again. 

“You needed to leave those on, until this evening at least.” You say in frustration.

“It’s better to let things heal of their own accord.” 

“You’re too desperate for battle scars, master.” 

“Just take your stance.” You fall back into it easily, now. 

“When will you let me train with the others.” It comes off as good natured pestering, but there are ulterior motives at work here.  

“When you have taken the Oath to myself and to the Order.” He wrinkles his nose spitefully at you. It’s frightfully hard not to roll your eyes.  

“And what does the Supreme Leader think about my future?” 

“He is not concerned with such little matters. Begin.”

You put up your mental blocks first as he begins a quick jab at your face, sloppy. You dart to his open side and jab him hard in the ribs with a protruding knuckle, you know from experience that it  _ hurts _ . But this only fires him up more, with a low growl he snares your feet with the Force to throw you off balance, you catch his arm as it comes toward you wildly, pushing it straight and slamming the back of his elbow with the heel of your palm. You grin as the crack resounds around the room. 

He doesn't stop to cradle his wound. 

He walks easily over to the rack on the wall you haven’t been allowed even  _ consider.  _

“You’ll make your own lightsaber when you swallow your girlish pride.” He tosses the thin metal cylinder casually, speaking lightly with a practiced, neutral expression. But within your mind his sentiment is clear:  _ You have earned this much, don’t make me take it all away.  _

A delicious chill runs up your spine when it ignites. The throbbing, clean beam of red light illuminates your light skin and warms your core. But your reverie is short lived. 

He doesn’t give you time for any experimental swings. 

The clash is white-hot and terrifyingly close to your face, the unruly beam of his own lightsaber pushing down on your indistinct practice saber. You finally push him off by distracting him with a force grab on his back foot and heaving your full body weight against his arrogant single-arm hold against you. But he’s much too fast, flourishing and striking with a speed and savage grace you didn’t know he was capable of. 

You scream when his blade grazes your upper arm, instantly cauterizing the wound but blistering and shearing away at soft skin at the same time. He takes advantage of your lapse in concentration, holds his own beam close enough to your tender neck that you can both hear and feel each wave of power coming off it. 

You surrender. 

“Take a break, then we’ll talk what to work on.” He powers down his lightsaber and hangs in on his wide belt in a way he’s surely done a thousand times before, turning away towards the water dispenser. 

“I need to call for a med droid.” Your left arm hangs uselessly by your side.

“No you don’t, come closer.” Uneasily you return your practice saber to the rack it came from, out of touch once again. And just when you were getting used to the heft of it in your hands. He meets you halfway. “You can use the Force to heal yourself, haven’t you tried it?” He places his wide palms around your small arm, gripping it firmly. 

“No.” You say softly, staring down at the way his pale hands bracket your darker and wounded flesh.

“You aren’t nearly ambitious enough, my apprentice” And just as he finished speaking you both watch in awe as your flesh begins to reform, knitting back together in what feels like the reversal of biting down on something crunchy. The only evidence left is the jagged tear in your tight training shirt and the vague warmth left under your skin where his hands rested before. 

He leaves you for water, you take the short moment to admire his massive presence, both tall and broad and dark. He takes up room effortlessly, the thick strength of his arms and legs, the solid way his feet connect to the floor like a mountain that always has and always will be. Eternal.

The water is cool and good and ripe for the taking in the silence, next to your master you consider Phasma, and all the strife she has been through, and the life she built herself from the ashes of absolute disaster. She’s a survivor too. You should have known. 

As soon as the consideration strikes you, like a rogue freighter coming out of hyperspace, you know it to be truth.  _ Your _ truth. It feels profound and deep as an ocean, no, deep as death itself and just as dark. It feels eerily like freedom. Like a supernova you’ve been holding inside has finally dimming into the quiet but formidable power of a black hole. This is your choice and your truth and by the Maker you will  _ take it.  _

“I will take the oath.” You made your eyes hard and pulled your shoulders back against the exhaustion that tugs at your bones. He sputtered around his sip of water in a deeply satisfying way, and looked at you like you had both single-handedly given him his childhood dreams grown a second head, the glass in his hand hovered between you like a dead ship floating through space. You shifted a little under the heaviness of his eyes, and the words felt funny on your lips, like they were too big for your mouth. You still don’t like being the object of this man's focus. 

You don’t know who you are, where you belong, and you don’t have a damn thing to go back to. This is the path of least resistance. They will make you a nightmare, and then you will be theirs to deal with. A clean slate, a clean cut will scar but not fester. Quickly cauterized by a lightsaber so you can carry on fighting. Carry on. A chance to leave this failed life behind and start over as someone no one can hurt. Not again. 

“You are certain this is the path you want?” You’re surprised that he gave you an out, like choice actually exists for you, and part of you strains to take it. This should have been part of his plans, Snoke’s plans, destiny, the Force. Why would a prisoner have reason to join her captors side? You admire his candor, the moments that you are allowed to see the  _ want  _ behind his eyes. “I need to notify the Supreme leader”

You will swear your life away to the Dark Side and the First Order and the Knights of Ren. Maybe you could find some small happiness in having something to swear allegiance to. Rather than feeling like acquired territory. You are not a warship. People are not things. 

“I am under no obligation to make sense to you. And I will. take. the oath.” You state again, determinedly, perhaps spitefully. Perhaps against your better judgment. He looks into you, unsure of your real intent- he observes your struggle and knows your conflict and sympathizes with it _perversely_. His presence in your memories feels like the grubby fingers of Phasma’s former owner. You pretend the sifting he does in your mind is like fingers in sand, it’s more like heaving stones. Graceless.

_ You understand the consequences of this decision _ His voice a more gentle nudge on the very edge of your consciousness like waves upon the shore, he dropped the words into you  like water droplets in an ocean. 

_ They are no worse than any other punishment I face here.  _ He stiffens in front of you, rising to his full height above you in a achingly primitive display of dominance. _ give me something to belong to other than your own greedy hands.  _ Was your vicious answer, punctuated with a spiteful look down to his ruined palms, scabbed and starting to scar despite your best efforts. But deep within yourself you knew it was different, it was the loss you have been made to feel.  _ The First Order has taken away all that I care for. I have nothing left to lose. Not even myself.  _ You stare at him unblinking though your hands grip like vices. You know the words cut through his mind like the daggers you’ve trained with.  _ Good _ , you think to yourself.  _ Let it hurt. _

You know he can see the ruined memories, smiles warped by his hand, voices changed and skies made sour. You can no longer remember the way your father’s fingers looked dancing across the old electro-organs keys. What did the cantina look like on Jakku? Who paid you? These are all lost now like fallen ships in the sand, floating aimlessly through the darkness of space, forgotten and without proper burial at that. Restless. These things were meant to haunt both your waking hours and your dreams.  _ The girl you took is dead, you killed her and I walk in her decaying corpse. _

_ I will grant you an audience with the Supreme Leader.  _ There is a sick joy in him, writhing just below the surface that makes your small breakfast threaten to make a second appearance. This man is a monster. Its as though he’s daring you to go back on your word. You sneer. Hard. 

_ Don’t grant me anything. I go of my own free will, when will you stop standing in the way of my destiny, Master.  _ Your heart has gone cold, closed off, a wall around a starving city. Let them hurt the way you have and let it all burn down around you. He quits your presence, leaving his only half empty glass on the table between you.  _ I take the oath.  _ Echoes around your skull like the great caverns of your homeland. You feel as though you should cry, another way to mourn your own memory. Selfish. Should you feel shame? Guilt? Anger? 

You don’t. 

You feel nothing. 

You take the final gulps of water from his glass as your own.


	24. Escort

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry I haven't updated in so long, I've had both terrible writers block and a full schedule. I go back to school in about a week so my posting may get more sporadic, but I do promise to continue this work until its end. Thank you for reading this far and keeping up with me!

“You’re not really here, I’m dreaming.” You looked up blearily around your wildly knotted hair at a red faced Hux at the foot of your bed, tapping his fingertips against his opposite elbow around tightly crossed arms. 

“I’m afraid I am. Get up.” He snapped sharply. 

“No”

“You have a promise to keep.” 

“No”

“You’re in no position to refuse me. Get up.” His not-so empty threats were motivation enough in the end, even at this obscene hour. Begrudgingly as ever, you rolled out of bed, bare feet stinging against the icy cold of the durasteel floor. You rubbed irritably at your eyes with the heels of your palms, seeing stars behind your heavy lids and struggling past the fog of grogginess. 

“Why is your face so red sir?” You sleep addled brain has lost its filter and reduced you to the mental capacity of a child. You inwardly chastise yourself even if it is too late for biting your tongue.

“I erm…” He looked at you in a curious way up and down twice. “that is of little consequence. Dress quickly, I will be waiting.” The sound of regulation perfect boots clicking against the floor is the only trace that he was ever there at all, like the ghost of inconvenience past.

“Good kriffing morning to you too. General.” You grumbled sourly to yourself as you struggle into the stupidly tight fitting training shirt and trousers that have become your closet staple, much prefered to the stuffy too-thick too-coarse sythawool of your Ensign uniform.

All while you slowly wake. you try not to think too hard about what keeping your promises entails. This man is not an ally, at least not yet. 

You give yourself one final look in the long mirror on the door of the closet before you leave, pretending to not notice the change in the way you hold yourself or the bulk of muscle you’ve put on. It’s easier to think that the small, svelte thing you used to be is still there deep down. Maybe she’s trapped and weak or dying, but maybe she’s still around to whisper to your current self stories of the past that would die without you to keep them alive. You shut out these heavy thoughts, too heavy for the lightness of early morning. 

He’s standing near the door, eager to get wherever you’re going. Mentally you drag your heels against the floor at the thought of spending an extended amount of alone time with him. He gives you a withering look in return before walking out the door at a particularly clipped pace, you jog slightly to keep up, at first, wondering idly how he can keep such ridiculously proud posture even while basically running through the corridors of the ship, and why he was in such a hurry. You blatantly roll your eyes hard enough to earn the almost-snicker of an approaching stormtrooper (who is quickly scowled back into submission by your oblivious commanding officer) when you realize that he keeps speeding up his pace so that you are forced to walk slightly behind him rather than at his side. in a kriffing  _ primeval _ and  _ astoundingly _ egotistic display. Even  _ Kylo Ren _ walks beside you, and you call him  _ Master _ . 

_ The goddamn king and I _ you think rather loudly to yourself more than anyone else, though you can feel Kylo try to contain a chuckle some distance away at your disgruntled, treasonous thoughts.  _ It’s too early right now to share a brain with you Master _

_ Watch your tongue Aelin _

_ Where are you, I can’t feel your body _

_ Training with Supreme Leader Snoke, concentrate.  _

_ Of course you are.  _

_ I’m going to ignore that in favor of telling you to have a successful mission _

“Where are we going?” You ask coarsely. 

“At the moment? The officers transport hangar” He checked his wrist-chrono casually but you can practically taste the swirl of emotions coming off him. The reality of your current situation hits you in delay, like the buffering on old holofilm,  _ the hangar- I’m leaving the Finalizer. I’m going to feel the ground beneath my feet again. _ These thoughts lift your spirits in a way Hux was not prepared to deal with, you all but hovered near him and gently vibrated in excitement. Elation is contagious, Ren perks up on the other end of the silver thread that connects you, his posture straighter and mental load lighter. You can feel him going about with ease of mind, a strangely pleasurable observance of another's productivity occupies your mind. 

“after that?” You prod.

“You don’t need to know.” He quips predictably.

“You know, I could just pluck the coordinates from your head” you say offhandedly, casually even, but it still sends a small thrill through you to just know that you have something to hold over his head. Petty? Completely, but also deliciously satisfying. The truth of the matter that you disappointingly hold within yourself is that it takes so much effort, and so much completely obvious and non-stealthy effort to do such a thing that it would neither be worth it or in your best interest until your training progresses more. 

He didn’t answer, but did do his best to shoot lasers from his eyes at you from over his shoulder. His thoughts take the form of an angry storm cloud within him, dampening that nervous excitement from before. You’re almost sad to see it go, almost. 

There’s a company of stormtroopers waiting silently in formation when you enter the hangar, the dauntingly luxurious Upsilon- class command transport awaits. Hux stops suddenly some distance away from the ship and all the troopers snap to saluted attention in unison, the sound of feet and armor on other hard surfaces resounding about, you steel yourself to keep from jumping at the noise like a skittish animal, preferring to instead wear an air of grace and poise when possible. 

“Have a pleasant trip sir.” The stormtrooper closest to Hux says, the ever amiable general doesn’t respond, only nods and continues walking towards the awaiting ship. 

The transport is nicer than anything you’ve ever been in before, clean and shiny durasteel contrasted by deep red cushions on the inward facing benches where you are seated across from the general, who is reading and filing datapads diligently while you gawk at the luxury. You spend the most time looking through the massive viewport and observing the lovely way the soft cabin lights refract off the shiny, new looking interior. 

“Is this your private transport sir?” You ask, genuinely curious.

“Yes, now when we arrive they will take you independent of myself, I have a meeting with our host before the event, but I will return before we attend to brief you on your mission.” He doesn’t look up from his work as he speaks. 

“My mission?” You question, heart suddenly jumping up into your throat.

“Yes, did you think you were only my date to some frivolous party? I have been tasked with the glorious purpose of bringing order to the galaxy,” He says in a worryingly casual way, “I have better things to do than go to silly parties with the plain whore my associate has taken as an apprentice.” you look down at the toes of your boots, stung a little by the harshness of his words. He sighs over his work when he realizes that he’s offended your more delicate sensibilities, starting again but softer, “This is a diplomatic mission, don’t look so tense.” 

“Why me?” You wonder out loud.

“Because your counterpart would either destroy everything or kill everyone.” He replied simply, still not meeting your eyes as they fell on him. With his neat uniform and pale, unmarred hands. 

“More likely both.” If you didn’t know any better you could have sworn the general smiled, though it looked more like he was bearing his teeth. 

You sat in silence for a long time after your almost amiable exchange, the only sounds around you the soft clicking of Hux’s fingers against the datapads and the gentle hum of the engines. It startled you when you woke with your temple pressed against the cool surface of the transparisteel, not realizing that you had dozed off. The service droid beeped happily as it set the tray of delicious smelling food between you. 

The pastry was flakey and warm as it broke apart in your greedy fingers, a stark contrast to your insta bread rations on Jakku and standard soldier's fare aboard the  _ Finalizer _ . You delight at trying all of the different fruits and cakes before you greedily. Your body calls for you to embrace the sensations offered to you, but your mind is keeping you from this indulgence. The question that has buzzed around your mind like an angry hornet resurfaces now that you have unsupervised and uninterrupted time with the general. 

“Go on now, say what's on your mind. Your constant teeth grinding is distracting.” He looked up to you over his datapad in an displeased glare.

“You won’t answer me.” You huff. 

“You cannot possibly know that.” He reposts around a bite of the sweet pastry, in the back of your mind you wonder if his has the same sweet tasting filling as yours. 

“Fine then.” you sigh and cross your arms across your chest defensively, “When I was taken-”

“Absorbed” He interrupts.

“Like I said,” You pause, narrowing your eyes at him, “taken, how did you know where to find me?” You move to tap your fingers lightly against your thigh, suddenly impatient. 

“That information is-”

“Classified.” you interrupt this time, rolling your eyes while you’re at it. It’s suddenly much easier to favor the view of the distant stars over your companion. Unsurprisingly you’ve lost your appetite. 

“Precisely. Is there anything else you feel the urgent need to bother me with?” 

“Fine, what interest did you have in possessing me other than my Force abilities.”

“I have no interest in your mystical religion.”

“Would you be more forthcoming under different circumstances?” You eye him in your peripheral vision from your rather unbecoming sulk. You push a little into his mind, ready to pluck information from his over-inflated head but he feels it coming and clamps down. Too long working near Ren has made him wary of Force-users, that man ruins everything for you. 

“Do you honestly think that I am that weak?” He drops the pad dramatically into his lap, indignant at your mental attack, “under which of these hypothetical circumstances are you speaking.” You delight, having managed to strike a tender nerve with the general it seems. 

“Well sir, there are those in which I strap you down the the very table you tortured me on before and utilize the very best IT-0 droid the Order has to offer…” you trail off when you seem to have lost his attention, but from the way his energy undulates within the lush cabin you would say you still have an iron grasp on his interest. Almost nothing more would make you happier than to see this man suffer the same way you have, that much is very true. “But then, there are those that explore more, alternative means of information extraction.” His pupils dilate widely at the sight of you now, one hand combed in your wild hair, head thrown back to gaze at him through hooded lids, and the other gently pushing your thighs apart as you lift your chest towards him. A treasure on display for a wicked man, but the thrill of it all secretly tantalizes you still. 

“Are you insinuating that I would trade government secrets for sexual favors, and from such a worthless hussy as yourself? Is it not bad enough that you’re Kylo Ren’s whore?” His words come through his teeth and and sting at your ego, but the flush crawling up his neck and into his chiseled cheeks and ears tells another tale. 

“Well, when you say it like that,  _ sir.”  _ You pull up one leg, setting your foot on the edge of the bench to give him a better view of the way your fingertips trail lightly over your clothed sex. All too calmly he collects his work and places them neatly at the end of the bench, also pausing a moment to press a small button on the wall. The service droid returns and takes the tray from between you, opening up the space once again. His eyes are heavy on you, but the tiny quirk of a well groomed brow and bite of his lip are all the signal you need. 

“On your knees girl” He breathes.

The fall to your knees doesn’t hurt like it used to, yet you try to not think about what you’re doing.  _ Ends to means, that is all this is. _ You think as you unfasten his trousers, his smooth hands weave into your hair as you work, licking from the base to the very tip, and flicking your eyes up to his as you do. He groans lowly when your mouth finally seals around his cock, swallowing him down in tight, wet heat. 

“So this is why Ren keeps you around.” He gasps around his words and fucks up into your mouth with little concern for your wellbeing, you suck harder and take it, bracing your hands on the tops of your burning thighs. Your mouth is filled with the heady, salty taste of pre-cum and you take him down as far as you can, your nose buried in clean smelling, soft orange curls at the base of his dick. “Oh fuck” His hips stutter and his hands tighten further at the crown of your head and you come up to swirl your tongue against the head and slit before sinking all the way down once again. And he’s arching off the bench with this eyes screwed shut, mouth open and slick in a truly obscene way, only little breathy “ _ oh”s _ crossing the distance between you as he cums down your throat, bitter and hot, you swallow around him as he returns to reality.

You wipe your mouth with your shirt-sleeve as you sit back on your haunches, he’s putting himself back away in those perfectly pressed uniform pants. Neither of you look at the other for a long while, you find your way back to your seat on the plush bench and look out the viewport once more as though nothing at happened.

“Tell me now, how did you know where to find me?” You say softly against the transparisteel after your breath returned to you and the traitorous heat between your thighs died down.

“Surely you didn’t think it was going to be that easy, did you?” He says casually as he returns to the datapads placed so carefully from before. Your blood boils and your hands curl into blunt-nailed fists. 

“I trusted you.” Gritted between your teeth. There is apparently honor amongst thieves but not high ranking officials. 

“That was your mistake, not mine” It’s obvious he doesn’t care, casually flipping through the same document a couple times with the fingers that were in your hair only moments ago. 

“You’re a monster.” You say halfheartedly, feeling as though there is no ocean big or deep enough for you that would ever make your skin feel clean after what you’ve done. 

“Shut your mouth girl, speaking is surely not its best use. We’ll be landing momentarily.” He looks at you smugly and pulls the lap belt from the back seam of the bench and fastens it around his lean frame, you silently follow suit. The small planet you’re approaching grows larger by the second, just like the sinking feeling deep in the pit of your stomach. 

 

It was disappointing to find out that you had landed in another bland looking hangar rather than on an open-air dock, what you need is the unadulterated bliss of feeling the warmth of the sun on your skin, yearning is too delicate a word for the feeling. Even for just a moment you would gladly relive a thousand disgusting bribery rendezvous. The both of you were greeted at the foot of the docking platform by two plainly dressed servants, with little pretense you are ushed away from General Hux. If you didn’t detest him so much you might worry at his loss, but as it is you’re probably safer without his company. Or maybe he is safer without yours. 

“What’s your name?” You ask gently to the girl in the pale blue uniform, you’re walking with her leisurely down a long hallway with very high ceilings and hard polished stone floors and pretending as though you’re not both enraged and scared out of your wits.

“Isova, miss” Her voice is so quiet, so meek it does not bounce around the halls as yours does. Her accent is not clear and offers no clues to your whereabouts. 

“Can you please tell me what planet I’m on?” You look at her and smile in what you hope is a soft way rather than predatory. 

“My apologies miss I ca-”

“You will tell me what planet I am on.” You wave a steady hand towards her, and she slows further to an easy stop as though you are simply old friends talking in the endless hallway, the glaze of the mind trick settles into her eyes.

“Choundula” It’s not a system you know, you sigh in disappointment and agitation. 

“Forget this.” She snaps comes out of it gracefully, far more gracefully than you ever did in training. You carry on walking beside her in the long hall and pretend to not feel the slight dampness on your brow. 

You’re brought to a wide room that’s all soft yellow lights with the same high ceilings as before but with white, smooth stone walls and floors and filled with sunken heated pools that steam rises off of like smoke to flame. Across the room in one of the sunken pools are a few Twi’lek women, svelte and beautiful and chattering on quietly, paying you no mind. You think to yourself that their serenely blue skin pleasantly compliments the white floor.

“I’ll take your clothes miss.” She speaks softly, her voice ringing about the stone room pleasantly like windchimes. You pull yourself out of your clothes quickly, not bothering to pretend to be coy, and hand them over so she can drape them over a thin arm. You look around before choosing a pool of your own, the cool of the air and warmth of the steam a tantalizing sensation across all of your exposed skin. You’ve never found any shame in nakedness really, and the warm water is soothing, often hopelessly dry from the re-circulated air of the  _ Finalizer.  _

All too soon you’re being pulled out and dried off by Isova and some other servant in the same uniform, another girl though, she doesn’t speak but instead produces a small gold pot and dips her fingers in the glistening liquid. You try to stand still as they slather you in some sweet smelling oil but the feeling of their small, skilled hands massaging your sore muscles is too wonderful to not groan at from time to time. It’s been too long since anyone touched you in a way that could be considered kind. 

After you’re slicked up from head to toe you’re brought around to a small alcove where you are too sit in a soft, blue cushioned chair at the base of a fountain, your head leaned back so your hair floats through the cool running water. Isova combs through the messy, bed-headed curls slowly while the other girl softly paints designs on your face with a silver cosmetic paint. The brush tickles and the comb pulls oh-so gently and this might  _ just _ be heaven. 

 

“Enjoying yourself?” No. Not heaven. You open only one eye to the soft light after your ears were assaulted by the voice of Hux, effectively ripping you from the pleasant bliss of before. 

“I was. How nice of you to join me.” You grumble and lift your head to look on him fully, he’s dressed smartly in a uniform similar to the one he’s always in, but this one is white and light grey and his hair is slightly more tousled than strictly allowed by regulation. How rebellious. You’re still only dressed in the oil that shines under the soft light, his eyes rake over you hungrily, stopping for a while at the swell of your hips. Your eyes harden on him. 

“You there,” Finally looking somewhere other than you he gestures with his sharp chin towards Isova, who is patting your hair dry with a soft towel from behind your seat. “Dress her and leave us.” His voice is quiet but not gentle. 

“Yes sir.” You assume she dips slightly into a curtsey before scurrying off, clearly fearful of your companion, maybe you should be as well. 

“What do you want.” You say it not at all like it’s a question, crossing your arms over your chest despite the slide of the oil that makes your arms hard to hold on to.

“Don’t you think it’s a little late for modesty?” His face remains impassive but you know there’s a smirk somewhere under that  _ insufferable _ facade he puts on. Hux is a different kind of awful than your master. Kylo wears his hatred like cruel second skin that doesn’t really belong to him like he’s borrowed it, Hux  _ is  _ his hatred and everything damned thing that comes with it. He’s not even ashamed of it. 

“Longing, what a soft word for such a ravenous hunger.” Your eyes narrow at him and you cross your legs one over the other in a not altogether ladylike way. You long for your hands around his pale throat. 

“And you do long for me, don’t you, little girl.” He sneers.

“Only for the day I deliver your death on a silver platter, sir.” He starts a counter but Isova returns and he shuts his mouth instead. 

“Please stand miss,” Isova whispers, you stand slowly and turn around as she begins dressing you. The ‘dress’ is little more than a swath of gossamer indigo fabric draped about your body and secured at the base of your throat with a silver collar. The slit up your left leg goes up far too high and the slit from hips to neck, exposing the delicate skin between your breasts makes you think it would be more honest to not wear anything at all. 

And Hux looks far too smug. 

“This is a pleasure-slave’s dress.” You state as Isova fluffs the wild curls of your hair around with her nimble fingers. One of the Twi’lek women laughs in the distance. 

“Yes.” 

“I’m not wearing it.”

“Then you will go naked, it would be a fitting punishment for your blatant insubordinance.” You can see yourself in the slick reflection on the smooth floor by his feet, the oil and silver tendrils on your brow and cheekbones and chin make you look ethereal, but you wish it was warpaint. This does not make you feel beautiful, you feel exposed and betrayed and it’s hard to remind yourself that this is worth the brief moments you had with your sister. 

“Sir, the master is prepared for your arrival.” You don’t look away from your own visage in the light stone when the slow voice of the usher boy jarrs the quiet tension of the baths. Isova gently adjusts a stray curl near your temple before you leave. Her eyes look sad. 

The stone floors are cold on your bare feet. 


End file.
